HANOVER STREET (1979) One star

In a review of the Michael Bay cinematic bomb PEARL HARBOR, “one of the most insulting, most cloying excuses for mass entertainment ever made” I called that one, I mentioned HANOVER STREET and called it both possibly Harrison Ford’s worst movie and a weeper from Hell.

HANOVER STREET establishes a basic plot scenario that worked much better in films contemporaneous with World War II, films like WATERLOO BRIDGE, CASABLANCA, THE CLOCK, and BRIEF ENCOUNTER. Outside that immediate context, though, a film had better be very good because otherwise it will not get away with a period romance. In fact, played badly, we just might laugh it right off the screen. That’s what I did, for example, to survive PEARL HARBOR.

We have all seen HANOVER STREET many times before, even before seeing the film for the first time. Peter Hyams both directed and wrote HANOVER STREET, so he definitely has nobody but himself to blame for such ridiculous tripe.

David (Ford), American pilot.

Margaret (Lesley-Anne Down), English nurse.

She’s married.

He’s not.

Instant love / lust.

They start a love affair in the midst of a London blown up real good.

She keeps her husband a secret from her new lover.

He’s assigned to escort a British secret agent into France.

They’re shot down behind enemy lines.

David discovers that secret agent, you guessed it, is Margaret’s husband, Paul (Christopher Plummer).

David and Paul must work together to survive.

Enough is enough, because I think anybody with an IQ of at least 100 can finish the rest of the synopsis of HANOVER STREET.

With the staggering success of both ROCKY and STAR WARS in back-to-back years (1976 and 1977), both good old-fashioned popular entertainments, Hollywood began churning out light, feel good, escapist pictures by the dozens. It especially became even more pronounced in 1979 (and beyond), since 1978 releases GREASE, HEAVEN CAN WAIT, and SUPERMAN proved to be major hits in the ROCKY and STAR WARS mold.

Just take a look at the poster for HANOVER STREET.

The words at the top: LOVE HASN’T BEEN LIKE THIS SINCE 1943.

Below that an illustration of Harrison Ford and Lesley-Anne Down looking each other passionately in the eyes, foreshadowing or merely shadowing a key scene in the movie.

More text (hype): “It was a time of courage and honor – of passion and sacrifice. This is the story of two people swept up in that time – who met – and fell in love.”

There’s also a map and two planes on the poster.

Ford worked so effectively as both Han Solo and Indiana Jones in eight films partly because he found a way to work in humor that counterbalanced all the cornball surrounding him. There’s also that priceless scene in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK when Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) tells Han that she loves him and he merely says, “I know.”

In HANOVER STREET, Ford stumbles his way though dialogue like “Think of me when you drink tea,” “I love you enough to let you go, which is more than I’ve ever felt about anyone in my life,” and “You’ve got to go to him, and I’ve got to turn and walk away.” To be fair, everybody stumbles in HANOVER STREET and there’s no counterbalance to cornball.

Christopher Plummer legendarily disliked working on THE SOUND OF MUSIC (he called it “The Sound of Mucus”) and he said this about his co-star, “Working with Julie Andrews is like getting hit over the head with a valentine.” (Plummer and Andrews have remained friends.)

I just wonder what Plummer has to say about HANOVER STREET.