Tawny Pipit (film)

Plot

During the Second World War Jimmy Bancroft (Niall MacGinnis), a fighter pilot just released from hospital, and his nurse (now his girlfriend) Hazel Broome (Rosamund John) are on a walking tour through the countryside. They arrive at the fictional village of Lipsbury Lea and, being keen birdwatchers, discover that a pair of tawny pipits, which are rarely seen in England, are nesting nearby.

Staying in the village, they enlist the locals to protect the nesting site until the eggs hatch. The villagers do so with great enthusiasm, led by the fiery retired Colonel Barton-Barrington (Bernard Miles) and the Reverend Mr. Kingsley.

Unfortunately, the field where the nest is located (known locally as the pinfold) is due to be ploughed up by order of the county's War Agricultural Executive Committee (the "War Ag"), and a delegation to the Ministry of Agriculture in London fails to get the order rescinded. Fortunately, the Minister was Barton-Barrington's "fag" at his public school, Marlborough, and personally intervenes to save the field from being ploughed.

The eggs duly hatch, but not before a plot to steal them on behalf of an unscrupulous dealer is foiled by an alert army corporal (a professional ornithologist) who is serving nearby.

Authenticity

James Fisher and Julian Huxley were credited as ornithological advisers for the film. Nevertheless, Eric Hosking's footage of the pipits was actually of meadow pipits because he could not get genuine tawny pipits from German-occupied Europe.

Filming location

Location filming was done in Lower Slaughter in the Cotswolds. The precise whereabouts of the fictional Lipsbury Lea are not specified, but the local pub serves ales brewed in Burford, which is in Oxfordshire, close to the boundary with Gloucestershire.

Propaganda value

By the time the film was released (not until 1947 in the United States), the threat of invasion had subsided, but it was still seen as an effective piece of propaganda. It showed the love of the English for their country and all classes of society uniting for the common good. A subplot shows Barton-Barrington presenting his Browning Automatic Rifle to Corporal Bokolova (Lucie Mannheim), a Russian soldier on a goodwill tour, whilst giving a fiery speech about some foreigners being "jolly good chaps".

Reception

Rosamund John was later to say, "Rank didn't think they would be able to sell it to America so it was stashed away for a while. When it was shown, it was wildly popular, because it was everything the Americans thought of as being English."