Jenny's War

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Jenny's War
Genre war
Based onJenny's War
by Jack Stoneley
Screenplay bySteve Gethers
Directed bySteve Gethers
Starring Dyan Cannon
Elke Sommer
Hugh Grant
John Moulder-Brown
Nigel Hawthorne
Robert Hardy
Christopher Cazenove
Theme music composer John Cacavas
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of series1
No. of episodes4
Production
ProducerPeter Graham Scott
Camera setup16mm film
Running timec. 50 minutes per episode
Production companies HTV
Columbia Pictures Television
Original release
Network ITV
Release3 June (1985-06-03) 
24 June 1985 (1985-06-24)

Jenny's War is a 1985 war television serial set during World War II, made by HTV in association with Columbia Pictures Television. It is directed by and written by Steve Gethers. The screenplay is based on the novel with the same name of Jack Stoneley. In the UK it was shown as four 50-minute episodes on the ITV network, while in the United States it was syndicated under the Operation Prime Time banner by MCA TV.

Contents

The serial stars Dyan Cannon, Nigel Hawthorne, Robert Hardy Christopher Cazenove and Hugh Grant, and is about a mother, Jenny Baines (Cannon), who searches for her son Peter (Grant), who was shot down over Germany, and who she believes is still alive.

The concentration camp site scenes were shot in the grounds of Thoresby Hall in the Nottingham countryside during the National Union of Miners strike. In the film the prison camp was known as Stalag Luft 4B but in reality it was a group of disused billet huts in some woods at Thoresby Hall, which was then owned by the Coal Board and which has now been turned into a day spa.

Bredon School's Pull Court was used as a Nazi headquarters.

A short mini-series made for TV, Jenny's War was first screened on ITV and subsequently released on VHS.

Plot

In 1941, Jenny Baines, an American living in England learns that her son, an RAF flier, has been shot down over Germany. Jenny goes into Germany, both as a courier for British Intelligence and also to search for her son. She enlists the help of Karl, her estranged husband who is also a Nazi officer, and he informs her that her son is dead.

But Jenny is resourceful and discovers that her son Peter may be in a German POW camp. However, her enquiries have attracted the attention of the Gestapo and she must disguise herself as a man to avoid capture. [1]

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References

  1. Gibraltar Chronicle newspaper (TV & Radio Guide); 31/05/1986; Page 5