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A fitting conclusion to Jennings' war record, this film of old death and new life-a war ending and rebirth-takes the form of a story addressed to a new-born child, recounting the sacrifices and struggles of the British people, yet celebrating the fact that it looks as if the worst is over.

A scriptless creation—Jennings was always out shooting and the pattern eventually took shape in the cutting room-the commentary written by E.M. Forster (read by Michael Redgrave) is sad and tinged with sentimentality, but Diary For Timothy is more than typically complex. In one sequence, he brilliantly fuses two totally dis­parate wartime events—the introduction of the German's V-2 (a faster than sound missile that was raining silently down on London), and a popular production of Hamlet that was then play­ing at the Haymarket Theatre with John Gielgud—and what so easily could have been a conceit becomes a stroke of cinematic genius.