Table of contents : Contents......Page 6 Acknowledgements......Page 8 Illustrations......Page 10 1 Introduction: Acting English......Page 12 Part I......Page 36 2 A British Cagney? Cinema and self-definition in the 1930s......Page 38 3 Mills at War, 1940–45: The nation incarnate?......Page 68 Part II......Page 106 4 A Cautionary Note: Great expeditions and the postwar world......Page 108 Part III......Page 146 5 Dead Men,Angry Men and Drunks: Post-traumatic stress and the 1950s......Page 148 6 The Spectre of Impotence: Fathers, lovers and defeated authority......Page 184 7 Playing the Fool: Comedy and the end of Everyman......Page 218 Filmography......Page 249 Bibliography......Page 252 Index......Page 260