The Battle of Britain

The Battle of Britain has always been a favourite of mine, right from childhood. I imagine in its time (1969) it was a bit of an anachronism. It was one of the last WWII films, and 60s Britain was really about leaving that wartime generation of austerity and moral rectitude behind. (By the way hurragh for the 1960s, my life would not have been so good if it wasn’t for that decade…)

I love early James Bonds and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and this film is really a remake of these – Saltzman producing, Guy Hamilton directing, the same production teams. All the plusses of Goldfinger and Chitty, and with beautiful shots of Spitfires, Hurricane, Me109s and He111s. All the star turns are a treat, particularly from Larry Olivier, Suzannah York, Ian McShane, Michael Caine (though his death is sudden and unexplained,) Robert Shaw, Trevor Howard, Kurt Juergens, Peter Cushing, and more.

The film gives nice sympathetic coverage of the Germans too – genuine sadness at the dinner table with the missing’s places filled with a solitary candle. The vaudeville actor Hein Riess plays a wonderfully pompous Goering.

The DVD is very well presented – the picture is better than Close My Eyes, twenty years its junior. The "making of" is a contemporary piece happily devoid of too much marketing tat, lovably introduced by Caine in his native East End. There is a wonderful interview with a BoB pilot with a smashing handlebar moustache. He comes across as a loveable guy who realizes he lived through a great time but does not have a hint of the “I fought for people like you” crap that afflicts (afflicted…) many of that generation. The 60’s haters I mean…

Historically the DVD points out that at that time no-one knew that Dowding had access to the Bletchley Park decrypted messages of Nazi High Command. This puts an interesting spin on the film’s words from Dowding as he invokes a miracle. The film also has the non-revisionist view that it was the plucky few (plus the Poles and hopefully not Ben Affleck for the USA) that rebuffed Operation Sealion, whereas nowadays it is more accepted that it was Hitler’s idea to look east that probably saved the day. Operation Barbarossa was being planned at the time I guess. Or was it too early for that? If the BoB ended in autumn 1940, and Barbarossa started in June 1941… It did show that the Luftwaffe’s change of plan from attacking the airfields and radar to blitzing London was a major error. The old maxim that you can’t bomb civilian populations into submission comes in to play. Except if it’s an atom bomb I guess. Did razing Dresden hasten the end of the Nazi’s? Difficult to say.

Anyway, it’s a wonderful romp. One of the scenes that I remember is Robert Shaw waking up in a Kentish cottage early in the morning looking in on his children before driving off to work. I guess it is the mundanity of the scene which is surprising against the fierce deadly battles being fought by this character. And Shaw is always a watchable, if slightly crap, actor.

And the Walton section of the film “Battle in the Skies” is truly great film music. I have yet to watch the DVD with the 100% William Walton soundtrack.