Around the time he was working on The Way Ahead Alwyn was also composing for On Approval, an adaptation of Frederick Lonsdale's 1920s drawing-room classic. The two films could not have been more different in mood.

On Approval was set up by the actor Clive Brook and produced by Sydney Box, for whose thriving documentary company, Verity Films, Alwyn had contributed several scores. It was Box's first feature and its production was cluttered with mishaps culminating in the front office shelving it, convinced it was unshowable. A few months later Brook retrieved it from the shelf, spent three weeks reshooting at his own expense, cut it around, and added a prologue. The result was the success of the season.

On Approval was one of a series of escapist entertainments, a reflection of the public's war weariness. It is a tale about a near penniless gentleman Richard (Roland Culver) and an American heiress Maria (Beatrice Lillie) who settle for a month's trial marriage in a Scottish castle, joined by their colleagues Helen (Googie Withers) and George, the Duke of Bristol (Clive Brook). Lonsdale's original drama had been set in 1927, but Brook, scripting with Terence Young, moved the action back to the “Naughty Nineties”. Whatever the mood of Lonsdale's original play, Brook's considerably revised film version was a mixture of cynical romance, humour, and faintly Wildean wit. It is a mood well served by Alwyn's flexible score. Mood is set at the very start of the titles with a staccato four-note horn fanfare :

It sounds like the chimes of a church clock or Big Ben. The rhythm is right, but the proper note sequence is C g’ a’ e’. The little melody is therefore humorously flattened off-key and prepares the audience for farce. Continuing vivace, the score leaps into a short and breathlessly vigorous polka. Further evocation of period and mood is introduced with a change of pace to a leisurely Viennese waltz. Its immediate repetition increasingly relaxes its audience, confirming its anticipation of escape from an anxious present into the comfort of a golden age.

The shock is the greater, therefore, of a sudden cut to contemporary newsreel war shots of aircraft guns rattling, explosions, ships’ guns, bombs, and general battle mayhem. For the audience of 1944, the pictures must have been depressing.