The Stars Look Down

The Stars Look Down is a British film from 1940, based on A. J. Cronin's 1935 novel of the same title, about injustices in a mining town in North East England. The film, co-scripted by Cronin and directed by Carol Reed, stars Michael Redgrave as Davey Fenwick and Margaret Lockwood as Jenny Sunley. The film is a New York Times Critics' Pick and is listed in The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made. Plot Coal miners, led by Robert "Bob" Fenwick, go on strike, refusing to work in a particular section of the mine due to the great danger of flooding, despite their own union supporting Neptune Colliery's owner, Richard Barras. Tensions rise as the strikers go hungry. Finally, some of them break into a butcher's shop and loot it. Bob Fenwick tries to stop it, but ends up being arrested himself. The miners give in and go back to work. Bob's son "Davey" wins a scholarship and moves away to attend school. While studying, Davey runs into an old friend, Joe Gowlan, now a bookmaker and philanderer. They go to a restaurant together with one of Gowlan's girlfriends, Jenny Sunley, the daughter of Gowlan's landlady. She tries to make Gowlan jealous by pretending to be smitten with Davey, but he is not taken in. He obtains a much better job from Stanley Millington through the influence of Millington's wife Laura. In the process he deserts Jenny who easily courts Davey, getting him to abandon his university career for a teaching job. Jenny is dissatisfied with her life as homemaker on Davey’s low wages and is profligate. Davey has unconventional modern teaching methods which are not appreciated by his seniors and he is sacked. While tutoring Barras’s son he finds Gowlan making a secret deal with Barras to mine in the dangerous section of the pit. Outraged he tries to persuade the trade union to call a strike, but his motives are questioned after it becomes known that Gowlan has renewed acquaintance with Jenny.