This Happy Breed (1944)

Taken from Noel Coward's popular play of the same name, David Lean's film looks at the way in which a working-class family adapts to life after the First World War, as they slowly move up the social ladder. Celia Johnson stars as dowdy housewife Ethel Gibbons, married to Frank, who has just returned from the war. Ethel had been sharing a house with her daughter Queenie, son Reg, crotchety mother Mrs Flint and spinster sister-in-law Sylvia. Frank returns from the war to move them all into a bigger house in Clapham and the film traces the ups and downs of the family's fortunes as peace allows them to reach for a greater standing in life.