On the big screen at least the Second World War is Britain’s finest hour: the moment when an entire nation rose up to oppose the tyranny of Hitler and was not found wanting.

However, the heroic celluloid exploits of the likes of Richard Attenborough in The Great Escape and Michael Redgrave in The Dam Busters have obscured a less palatable, more complex truth: Britain’s willingness to stand up to the Nazis was in doubt until war was declared and disputed long after.

A new film by the celebrated writer and director Stephen Poliakoff shines a rare spotlight on the many Britons who advocated peace with Hitler. Glorious 39 revolves around an establishment plot to stop the opponents of Neville Chamberlain’s appeasment policy. Itstars Bill Nighy, Julie Christie and David Tennant and will be shown as part of The Times BFI London Film Festival, which begins today.

Poliakoff, who wrote the award-winning television drama Gideon’s Daughter, said that the murderous conspiracy at the heart of the film was an invention but the historical context was not. On becoming Prime Minister in 1937 Chamblerlain did everything he could to avert war with Germany. In 1938 he gave into Hitler’s demands on Germany annexing part of Czechoslovakia and for his efforts he returned a national hero, promising “peace for our time”.

Times Archive, 1938: Mr Chamberlain's return

'This morning I had another talk with Herr Hitler and here is a paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine'

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When Hitler broke the agreement by occupying the rest of Czechoslovakia the following March, war seemed inevitable. Chamberlain still hoped to prevent it and declared war only after Germany invaded Poland. When he fell from power in 1940, the majority of the Conservative Party and the Royal Family wanted his successor to be Lord Halifax, an advocate of appeasement, not Winston Churchill.

Poliakoff said that he had set out to challenge the complacency of British audiences. “We are quite happy to accuse the French of not facing up to their collaboration but the fact is that there were very powerful forces in this country that wanted us to do the same. That has not been widely represented on film before and the mass of the population is not aware that it was such a close-run thing.”

Professor Peter Mandler, a historian at the University of Cambridge, said that the film took up a “perfectly reasonable artistic perspective” and filled a gap in the way that “the culture has handled these questions”.

However, he warned against confusing the broad pacifist sentiment that emerged in the Thirties with sympathy for Nazism, even though there were “circles within the elite who were probably anti-semitic and pro-German”. Churchill’s elevation to the leadership could be read as proof of how far the public mood had shifted by 1940, when “the most maverick, right-wing politician could be thrust to the front of politics simply because he was right about the Nazis”.

Glorious 39 will be shown on October 27 and goes on general release on November 20.

The film festival opens October 14 with the world premiere of Fantastic Mr. Fox, which stars the voices of George Clooney and Meryl Streep.

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