Two Thousand Women (1944) DVD-R

Starring Phyllis Calvert, Flora Robson, Patricia Roc,
Renee Huston and Reginald Purdell
Directed by Frank Launder

Print: black/white
Runtime: 97 min.
Genre: Comedy
Print Quality: B

The "2000 Women" of the film's title are the female inmates in a WW II German concentration camp in France. Though many of the women don't get along, they are united in their hatred for their Nazi captors. The story takes a truly melodramatic turn when three English airmen parachute into the camp, offering a ray of hope for those inmates planning an escape. Some of the humor is "black" indeed, involving a card-playing corpse and other questionable sources of laughter, but this was the sort of material that wartime audiences wanted. Heading the cast of 2000 Women are Phyllis Calvert, Flora Robson and Patricia Roc, fine British actresses all who overcome an abundance of script deficiencies. The film was the first production of Individual Pictures, formed by the producer-director-writer team of Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat.