Battle of Britain (film)

Battle of Britain
File:Battle of Britain DVD.jpg
Directed by	Guy Hamilton
Written by	James Kennaway Wilfred Greatorex
Produced by	Harry Saltzman S. Benjamin Fisz
Starring	Laurence Olivier Robert Shaw Trevor Howard Christopher Plummer Michael Caine Edward Fox Susannah York Ian McShane Kenneth More Ralph Richardson Patrick Wymark Michael Redgrave Curt Jurgens Nigel Patrick
Distributed by	United Artists
Running time	126 m
Budget	$12,000,000

Battle of Britain is a 1969 film directed by Guy Hamilton. The film broadly relates the events of the Battle of Britain. The script by James Kennaway and Wilfred Greatorex was based on the book The Narrow Margin by Derek Wood and Derek Dempster.

The film aims to be an historically accurate account of the Battle of Britain, when in the summer and autumn of 1940 the British RAF inflicted a strategic defeat on the Nazi Luftwaffe and so ensured the cancellation of Operation Sealion - Hitler's plan to invade Britain.

The film is notable for its spectacular flying sequences, echoing those seen in Angels One Five (1952), but on a far grander scale than had been seen on film before. These made the film's production very expensive and, despite its star cast and worthy intent, the film was not a commercial success.

Cast

British Cast

The movie film has an all-star cast including Laurence Olivier as Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, the Air Officer Commanding RAF Fighter Command, Trevor Howard as then-Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park, the Officer Commanding No.11 Group of the RAF, and Christopher Plummer as a Canadian fighter pilot, Squadron Leader Colin Harvey. (Since Plummer was a Canadian by birth, he had specifically asked for his character's RAF uniform to display the "Canada" shoulder flashes.) Other cast members include Michael Caine as Squadron Leader Canfield, Ralph Richardson in a cameo role as the British Ambassador to Switzerland, Robert Shaw as Squadron Leader Skipper, Susannah York as Section Officer Maggie Harvey (Colin's wife), Ian McShane as Sergeant Pilot Andy, and Kenneth More (who had made himself a household name with his portrayal of Douglas Bader in Reach for the Sky 12 years before) as the Station Commander at RAF Duxford.

German Cast

The film is notable for its portrayal of the Germans by subtitled German-speaking actors. Among the actors portraying the Germans were Curt Jurgens as the German Ambassador to Switzerland and larger-than-life musical star Hein Riess, who played the commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, occasionally laying into his fighter chiefs for failing to give enough support to the bombers which were being shot down by the fighter planes of the RAF. One scene included a brief exchange based on what wartime Luftwaffe pilot Adolf Galland (who was to become the youngest man to hold general rank in the Luftwaffe at the age of only 30) had said to Goering. When Goering asked Galland (the character of "Falke" was a substitute in the movie) what he needed, Galland allegedly replied, "Give me a squadron of Spitfires!" According to a booklet publicizing the movie, Riess had allegedly once met Goering himself during the war. Galland himself acted as a technical advisor for the movie.

The Making of the Film

For the movie the producers Harry Saltzman and S Benjamin Fisz assembled a huge number of historical aircraft, contracting former Bomber Command war hero Group Captain Hamish Mahaddie to find them. In the late 1960s there were few restoration projects for classic aircraft going on and Mahaddie's efforts rounded up twenty-seven Spitfires, twelve of them flyable, and six Hawker Hurricanes, three of them flyable, which contributed significantly in saving the aeroplanes from extinction.

Thirty-two Heinkel He 111 bombers and seventeen Merlin-engined Me 109s were also found in Spain. The Messerschmitts were actually Spanish-assembled versions officially designated the Hispano-Suiza HA.1112 Buch�n. In addition, two Spanish-built Junkers Ju 52s were also used. Two of the Heinkels and all the Messerschmitts were later flown to England to complete the shoot.

Filming was carried out at four airfields, Duxford, Debden, North Weald and Hawkinge, all of which were operational RAF stations during the actual Battle of Britain.

Accuracies and Inaccuracies

The film is generally faithful to the real historical events although merging some characters for dramatic reasons. It sticks to the orthodox view of the battle - that the Germans threw away their tactical advantages by switching bombing away from RAF airfields to terror bombing of London in revenge for RAF raids on Berlin. Later scholarship has cast doubt on this view, either arguing that the German switch was because they thought they had already defeated the RAF or that accelerated British aircraft production meant that defeat was never likely.

As noted above many of the 'German' aircraft were actually Spanish copies with British Rolls-Royce Merlin engines.

The scenes in the operation centre where the British listen to their fighters wireless transmissions is for dramatic reasons only. In reality the operations centre received information on the progress of the battle by telephone via the sector airfields.

Musical Score

The stirring musical score was originally written by Sir William Walton and conducted by Malcolm Arnold. However, the music department at United Artists objected that the score was insufficient to make up a long-playing record. As a result, the score was rejected and the film was rescored by Ron Goodwin. At the instigation of S. Benjamin Fisz one segment of the Walton score, titled The Battle in the Air, framing the climactic air battles of 15th September 1940, was retained in the final cut. Tapes of the Walton score were believed lost forever until rediscovered in 1990, since when they have been restored and released on CD. The complete Walton score was reinstated as an added extra on the Region 2 Special Edition DVD of the movie released in June 2004.

Influence

Footage from the film was reused in the 2001 Czech movie Dark Blue World.

A paperback of the making of the movie was published in 1969.