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An excellent subject acted by an excellent cavalcade of excellent British talent! England had been at war for three years from 1914-1917 in WWI before the US joined in, and this WWII was the same, as in 1939-1945 England battling with its commonwealth allies; Kiwis, Canucks, Fijians, South Africans, Australians and the likes of the French and the Polish...before the US joined in again on 7th December 1941! Yes, 7th December 1941 - and only then when the US was attacked itself! This time the "Battle of Britain" in 1940 was the ultimate test for Britain and her real allies again. London was under massed bomber formations attack every night under Hitler's "Blitzkrieg" on some of England's most heavily-populated cities - and, against overwhelming odds, the heavily outnumbered and outgunned RAF and their real friends defeated der Luftwaffe! A great watch!Read full review
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Considering the time that the movie was made...1968... in the days before CGI, arguably the best 'air combat' movie ever made where the main action was based on 'fighter vs fighter'. For the purists it's a damn shame that the German aircraft weren't actual Messerschmitts and Heinkels. It's only been in more recent times that the numbers of restored flying 109's has been on the increase. As for the script and the acting.. it's 'patchy at best'. The actors do the best that they can with the material they're given to work with, and the cast is a veritable who's who of british actors. It's still a good movie, and one of my favourites.. especially now it's been re-mastered to blu ray standards. :-)
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Most people do not normally associate the title sequence of a movie as a highlight; however in "Britain" it is my favourite. A German Air force General is escorted out of his WW2 tri motor aircraft as the camera zooms out to behold scores of real German bombers lining the airfield with crews assembled at attention underneath each one ready to salute the passing General. It is a unique feeling to know that your eyes are looking at real history: Aircraft that are still airworthy and will soon (in the film) be flying and dropping actual bombs on an airfield. Seeing this I was frankly filled with sadness that movies are not made like this anymore. Movies are no different to watching any kind of performing arts where the level of effort put in by the production or actors directly affects our level of entertainment. Any moviegoer with an average knowledge of the subject they are watching will know when they are being duped. I remember a scene in the 1965 film “Battle of the Bulge” when the WW2 German commander sets off with his brigade of Vietnam-era American tanks painted grey to attack the Americans, even more recently in 2012’s “Red tails” the bomber epic with the hundreds of computer generated bombers. With both these examples, there is an appreciation for the scene but it feels you are being cheated; watching something that reminds you that this is just a movie, especially if the scene makes you feel like the production expended a lot less effort than was expected. Often though, when the production has put everything on the line; with fantastic sets that transport you into the story, or actors risking all with incredible neck breaking stunts, voice-shattering acting, or even virtuoso handling of props; you walk away knowing that you've seen something unique. "Britain" is such a movie. You know that those are real planes and pilots risking their lives inside steel and canvas machines doing crazy stunts that could be their last. You appreciate the incredible cost and meticulous planning it must have taken to find all those aircraft and stage such a spectacle, so much that even if you weren’t around to look up at the London sky in 1940, that the experience must've truly been like what you just witnessed in the Movie. This is not really a criticism of modern day films; It now almost impossible to put into the air more than couple Spitfires made in 1940 due to their rarity. Indeed only one flyable Messerschmitt bf109e still exists from that era. This restricts any attempts today to film the same majestic scenes of squadrons of flying aircraft to ones generated with Photoshop and an animator "flying" them using a Macintosh while sipping his hipster latte in some converted Soho warehouse. Actual numbers are hard to obtain but when the movie was made in the mid-60s, it involved literally the air forces of several countries (who had stockpiled these ww2 aircraft) and scores of stunt and military pilots employed in the filming sequences. Sure, many scenes involved remote controlled aircraft but those were almost entirely for mid-air explosions or aircraft that no longer existed. Scenes involving the wholesale destruction of the RAF on the ground were full scale wooden planes built for the production with motors to turn the propellers to give the very convincing illusion that they were real planes being blown up. “Britain” is not without its faults, it is a 2 hour long film based on the book “The Narrow Margin” with many actors portraying montages of characters in the book. Director Guy Hamilton’s choice to structure the movie with a series of set piece battles based on historical events is historically accurate but as with HBO’s “The Pacific”, this lends the movie to having a weaker narrative with a lack of strong developed central characters, relegating them to mere witnesses or participants in the story. I remember the first time I watched the movie in my youth, I’d not even realised that Squadron Leader Kentfield (Michael Caine) had gone down with his plane, until I had watched it for a second time. Such was the pace of the script and the indifference it treated minor characters. In conclusion, “Britain” is a standalone movie unparalleled in its ability to document a unique moment in history that can never be replicated again. It is worthy of viewing by all students of history even if the screenplay can be slightly jarring and impersonal, and has to be the standard by which future movies in the subject must be judged.Read full review
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A darn good yarn
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