BFI

A curious propaganda film partly funded by the Admiralty and based on a 1916 play, It Is for England reflects the change in the spy story in the war years. With the advent of war, it was deemed unpatriotic to show Britons spying, hence the use of a naturalised enemy alien as the spy in this film.

In many ways, this new protagonist harked back to the invasion literature before the First World War which claimed that Britain was overrun by spies. In this case, Sir Charles Rosenbaum is a German-born naturalised citizen plotting the downfall of Britain. A similar character appears in "Peril" The Story of the Gotha Raiders (1917). The intertitles, especially towards the end of the film, are surprisingly critical of government policy before and during the war. For example, when Rosenbaum learns that Britain has declared war, the intertitle notes, "Rosenbaum's miscalculations on what England would do, undid the patient, ceaseless, disloyal work of years. So he and all the other 'Rosenbaums' worked hard to retrieve their position and no one in authority cared". Again, through the strong character of the heroine, Mary Marshall, disaster is averted and the British fleet saved from a Zeppelin raid.

Simon Baker

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