The Stars Look Down 1940

Drama

Runtime

110 mins

Language

English

Directed by

Carol Reed

Made by

Grafton Films

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The Stars Look Down Plot Summary

Read the complete plot summary and ending explained for The Stars Look Down (1940). From turning points to emotional moments, uncover what really happened and why it matters.

In a hard‑bitten coal town, miners led by Robert Fenwick, Edward Rigby, strike to protest the extreme danger of flooding in a deep section of Neptune Colliery. The action strains families as hunger gnaws, and even the union’s support for the mine’s owner, Richard Barras, Allan Jeayes, is tested. After days of privation, some miners break into a butcher’s shop to loot, and Robert Fenwick tries to intervene but is arrested, forcing the miners back to work. Back home, Davey Fenwick, Michael Redgrave, earns a scholarship and leaves for university, while his brother Hughie Fenwick, Desmond Tester, watches the upheaval with a mix of pride and worry.

While studying, Davey reconnects with Joe Gowlan, now a bookmaker and philanderer Emlyn Williams. They share a meal at a restaurant with Gowlan’s girlfriend Jenny Sunley, Margaret Lockwood, the daughter of Gowlan’s landlady. Jenny tries to provoke Gowlan’s jealousy by feigning affection for Davey, but he is not easily swayed.

Davey soon finds a new path through Stanley Millington, Cecil Parker, who helps him secure a better job with the aid of Laura Millington, Linden Travers. This opportunity tempts him away from university life and into a teaching post, altering the course of his ambitions and relationships.

As he tutors Arthur Barras’s son, David Markham, Davey uncovers a troubling secret: Gowlan has renewed a covert deal with Barras to mine in the dangerous section of the pit. Outraged, Davey tries to rally the trade union to call a strike, but his motives are questioned once it becomes clear that Gowlan has rekindled his relationship with Jenny, complicating loyalties and personal choices.

The new contract proceeds, and disaster strikes at the mine, underscoring the perilous stakes beneath the surface of work, love, and ambition.

The Stars Look Down Timeline

Follow the complete movie timeline of The Stars Look Down (1940) with every major event in chronological order. Great for understanding complex plots and story progression.

Strike begins at Neptune Colliery

Miners led by Bob Fenwick walk off the job, refusing to work in the flooded section because of obvious danger. The strike is shaped by the community's loyalty to Barras's ownership and the union's cautious stance. Tensions build as the situation drags on.

Neptune Colliery

Hunger and hardship during the strike

Hunger and hardship mount as the strike continues. Families worry about meals and futures, pressuring both sides. The atmosphere grows tense in both the mine and the town.

Town near Neptune Colliery

Looting and arrest during the strike

A group of miners breaks into a butcher's shop to loot supplies. Bob Fenwick tries to intervene but ends up being arrested, underscoring how quickly discipline frays during the strike. The incident deepens the miners' crisis and divides loyalties.

Town center near Neptune Colliery

Strike ends and workers return

Under mounting strain, the miners concede and return to work at Neptune Colliery. The strike collapses, but resentments linger among workers, owners, and the union.

Neptune Colliery

Davey Fenwick leaves for university

Davey Fenwick wins a scholarship and moves away to attend university. His departure marks a shift from the mining community to higher education. The town begins to glimpse a different future for its younger generation.

University town

Davey reconnects with Joe Gowlan

While studying, Davey runs into Joe Gowlan, an old friend who has become a bookmaker and philanderer. The reunion foreshadows how past connections will influence Davey's choices. Their renewed contact hints at upcoming complications.

University town

Jenny Sunley enters the scene

Davey and Gowlan go to a restaurant with Gowlan's girlfriend Jenny Sunley. Jenny tries to make Gowlan jealous by feigning interest in Davey. Davey remains wary of the tangled motives surrounding him.

Restaurant

A better job through Millington's influence

Davey obtains a much better teaching job through the influence of Stanley Millington and his wife Laura. The opportunity reshapes his career and alters his personal affairs, particularly with Jenny. His professional ascent begins to pull him away from his earlier life.

Millington network

Davey deserts Jenny for a teaching career

Spurred by the new opportunity, Davey deserts Jenny and abandons his university plan for a teaching position. Jenny quickly tries to recalibrate her life around him, using affection to steer his path. The romance and ambition become interwoven with his career decisions.

City / University town

Jenny's dissatisfaction and Davey's teaching clash

Jenny grows dissatisfied with life as a housewife on Davey's modest wages. Davey develops unconventional teaching methods that irk his superiors and eventually lead to his dismissal. The personal and professional pressures collide in a tense moment of consequence.

School

Gowlan's secret deal with Barras exposed

While tutoring Barras's son, Davey discovers Gowlan making a secret deal with Barras to mine in the dangerous section of the pit. The revelation deepens distrust and sets the stage for tragedy. Tensions rise as loyalties blur between friends and owners.

Barras's mine vicinity

Davey pushes for a strike; motives questioned

Outraged by Gowlan's deal and his renewed acquaintance with Jenny, Davey tries to persuade the trade union to call a strike. His motives are questioned as the union leadership weighs the risk of renewed conflict. The labor politics become murky and personal grievances surface.

Trade union meeting

Contract proceeds and disaster hits the mine

The new contract proceeds at the mine, but disaster follows as the dangerous conditions take their toll. The catastrophe underscores the fragility of life in the mining community and the high stakes of profit versus safety. The story closes on a grim note for the town and its people.

Neptune Colliery

The Stars Look Down Characters

Explore all characters from The Stars Look Down (1940). Get detailed profiles with their roles, arcs, and key relationships explained.

Robert Fenwick (Bob)

A principled miner and the father of Davey, Bob embodies the enduring strain between collective duty and personal risk. He leads by example during the strike, but his restraint when the situation spirals into looting shows his moral complexity. His loyalty to fellow workers clashes with the harsh realities of hunger and law enforcement.

⚒️ Miners 👨‍👦 Family man 🕊️ Moral conflict

David Fenwick (Davey)

Bob’s son, a bright student who wins a scholarship and leaves the mining world for university. His modern teaching approach and eventual tutoring of Barras’s son place him at the center of a changing social order. Davey’s choices—between education and the pull of the pit—define his character’s arc.

🎓 Education 👨‍🏫 Teaching 🏛️ Ambition

Jenny Sunley

Daughter of Jenny’s landlady, she is ambitious and dissatisfied with life on Davey’s modest wages. Her flirtations and shifting loyalties complicate relationships, drawing Davey into a separate path from his scholarship. Jenny’s actions help propel the social drama and underscore the era’s gendered pressures.

💃 Romance 💰 Materialism 🧠 Manipulation

Joe Gowlan

An old friend turned bookmaker and philanderer, Gowlan embodies opportunism and moral ambiguity. His renewed ties with Jenny and secret deal with Barras push the plot toward a dangerous intersection of love, money, and power. Gowlan’s scheming reveals how personal desires can threaten community safety.

🎭 Cunning 🕵️‍♂️ Opportunism 🃏 Deception

Laura Millington

Wife of Stanley Millington, Laura wields social influence and uses her position to aid Davey’s path, explicitly or covertly. She embodies the class-based power that shapes opportunities in the town, navigating her husband’s interests while pursuing moral ambiguity in the process.

🏛️ Power 🧭 Influence 👩‍💼 Social status

Stanley Millington

Owner of Neptune Colliery, he represents the industrial-era capitalist pressure that dwarfs the miners. His interests drive the tension between labor and management, and his responses to the strike reveal the pragmatism and ruthlessness of a mine owner under economic strain.

🏭 Industrialism 💼 Power 💸 Capitalism

Richard Barras

Mine owner tied to the dangerous plan to mine in the flooded section, Barras embodies the exploitative potential of industrial wealth. His behind-the-scenes deals with Gowlan escalate the conflict, placing profit above people and testing the miners’ resolve.

💼 Capitalism ⚖️ Authority 🪪 Conflict

Arthur Barras

Barras’s son, evaluated through Davey’s tutoring, represents the younger generation’s potential and the shifting priorities of the town. His presence links the miners’ struggle to the next generation’s future and the opportunity for reform through education.

👦 Youth 🧠 Education

Hughie Fenwick

Davey’s brother, part of the family’s mine-centered world yet touched by larger social changes. His role underscores the personal cost of industrial conflict on families and the continuity of mining life through the next generation.

🧒 Family ⚒️ Miners

Wept

A fellow miner whose presence among the strikers highlights the solidarity and shared fate of the workforce. Wept’s reactions help illuminate the emotional texture of the strike and its human cost.

👷 Miner 🤝 Solidarity

Mrs. Sunley

Jenny’s mother and the landlady who anchors the social world of the Sunleys. Her interactions with Gowlan and others provide a window into the town’s informal networks and the daily pressures on families at the margins.

🏚️ Landlady 👵 Matriarch

Martha Fenwick

Davey’s mother, a pillar of resilience amid strike hardship and family strain. Her quiet strength reflects the private costs for those who hold their families together through collective turmoil.

👩‍👧 Family 💪 Resilience

The Stars Look Down Settings

Learn where and when The Stars Look Down (1940) takes place. Explore the film’s settings, era, and how they shape the narrative.

Time period

1930s

Set during the interwar period in Britain, a time of economic hardship and growing industrial strife. The film situates miners’ struggles within the broader context of labor politics and the Great Depression. The era's precarious livelihoods and class tensions shape every decision, from strikes to education.

Location

Neptune Colliery, Mining town

The story unfolds in a British mining town centered on Neptune Colliery, a harsh, smoke-filled environment where danger is routine. The community lives by the rhythms of shifts, sermons of the union, and the looming threat of flooding in the mine. The urban landscape—ludicrously small shops, crowded tenements, and a stark social divide—drives the tension between workers, owners, and the local authorities.

⚒️ Mining town 👷 Working-class community 🏭 Industrial setting

The Stars Look Down Themes

Discover the main themes in The Stars Look Down (1940). Analyze the deeper meanings, emotional layers, and social commentary behind the film.

⚒️

Labor Conflict

The miners’ strike over dangerous working conditions exposes the fragility of solidarity when hunger and fear creep in. The union’s support for the mine owner contrasts with individual acts of defiance, highlighting the complexity of collective action. The narrative probes whether loyalty to colleagues can justify risky, even illegal, actions in pursuit of safety.

🎓

Education & Mobility

Davey Fenwick’s scholarship offers a path out of the pit, symbolizing opportunity beyond the coal face. His eventual return to teaching contrasts with the town’s traditional expectations and the harsh realities of the workforce. The film explores education as a bridge between worlds and a catalyst for personal transformation.

💥

Disaster & Risk

Danger within the mine underpins the plot, underscoring how small decisions can lead to catastrophic outcomes. The looming threat of flood and structural failure mirrors the social danger of corruption and opportunism. The disaster functions as a reckoning for characters who push profit or personal gain over safety.

🤝

Moral Ambition & Betrayal

Characters volley between loyalty to friends, family, and community and the lure of personal advancement. Gowlan’s schemes and Jenny’s manipulations test trust and reveal how ambition can erode integrity. The narrative tracks the ethical lines crossed in pursuit of status, money, or relief from hardship.

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The Stars Look Down Spoiler-Free Summary

Discover the spoiler-free summary of The Stars Look Down (1940). Get a concise overview without any spoilers.

In a hard‑bitten coal town where the rhythm of life is dictated by the shifts at the local colliery, the ground beneath the community is as unstable as the times. The struggle between the miners and the owners casts a long shadow over every household, creating an atmosphere thick with tension and unyielding perseverance. It is here that Davey Fenwick, a bright young man with a mind sharp enough to see beyond the pit, wins a scholarship to university. His ambition, however, is not merely to escape his roots but to arm himself with education, intending to return and aid the miners in their fight for dignity and safety.

Stepping into the world of academia, Davey finds himself navigating a landscape that stands in stark contrast to the industrial grit of his home. The opportunity represents a beacon of hope for his family, yet it also creates a physical and emotional distance from the very people he aims to help. As he delves into his studies, the pull of his origins remains strong, grounding his intellectual pursuits in the harsh realities faced by his neighbors. The weight of expectation sits heavily on his shoulders, requiring him to balance the privileges of the university with the hardships of the mining community.

The course of his journey takes a sharp turn when he meets and falls in love with Jenny Sunley, a woman whose influence quickly alters the trajectory of his carefully laid plans. Her persuasion leads him toward a different kind of future, one that involves marriage and a position as the village schoolteacher. This decision anchors him firmly to his hometown, delaying his degree but satisfying a different kind of longing. By choosing to stay, Davey places himself directly in the center of the town’s friction, no longer an outsider looking in, but a resident with new stakes in the community’s survival.

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