Stephen Poliakoff on the set of Glorious 39

It’s a truly British film with a stellar cast of actors which uses the weeks preceding the outbreak of World War 2 as the backdrop for this psychological thriller.

The summer of 1939 had been golden and dominated by some of the greatest parties the aristocracy had ever held – yet it turned into an autumn where the survival of democracy was hanging by a thread.  Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was at the forefront of the movement to appease Hitler, whilst a small group of forward-thinking politicians led by Winston Churchill advocated the need to go to war and face the Nazi threat head-on.

Set against this political intrigue, the formidable and aristocratic Keyes family are determined to preserve their traditional English way of life in the midst of this uncertainty, fearing it will be lost forever if war breaks out.  Their adopted eldest child Anne is a budding young actress and in love with a Foreign Office official but her seemingly perfect, carefree life begins to dramatically unravel when she stumbles across secret recordings hidden in the out-buildings of the family home.  Whilst trying to uncover their origins, a tangled web of dark secrets begins to unfurl, along with a growing sense of menace and betrayal.

Romola Garai as Anne Keyes

This is Poliakoff’s return to film after a decade of writing and directing dramas for BBC television, including Gideon’s Daughter and The Lost Prince.  A Jew born in London to a Russian father and English mother, he has written about the war and Holocaust before – but this is the first time he has examined this critical period when Britain was on the brink of making a deal with Hitler and staying out of the war altogether.

“Reading the diarists from the period I realised what a close run thing it was that I’m here at all, and indeed any Jew in Britain is here altogether,” he says.

“There’s a view that Chamberlain was this mild mannered chap who didn’t have it in him to be Prime Minister, but actually that’s far from the case.  He was an incredibly dictatorial figure who could not be contradicted and who had his own network of spies. I’ve obviously heightened things in the script and I’ve made it clear that it’s not Chamberlain who was having people bumped off – but nevertheless, it’s true that the appeasers were bugging people’s conversations, including Churchill’s.”

Bill Nighly as Alexander Keyes in Glorious 39

“At that time Churchill was thought of as an adventurer by the Tory party and even when he became Prime Minister, members of his party wrote that it was a complete disaster that  this ‘half breed American’ was leader,” Poliakoff says.

“Ultimately I wanted to create a powerful story that would resonate with a modern audience, but which was firmly based on historical fact.  So many elements of Glorious 39 are true – the spying, the fact the secret service was used by the government to quell all opposition to its policy of appeasement, the sense of panic as war is declared which led to people having their pets put down, and how passionate feelings were unleashed even amongst the least politically minded about whether Britain should face up to Hitler at all.”

Glorious 39 is in cinemas now.