Battle of Britain (1969) - film review

In the spring of 1940, British fighter pilots are waging a losing battle against the Nazis in continental Europe.  Seeing that the fall of France to Germany is inevitable, Air Chief Marshal Dowding advises the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to withdraw all RAF fighters and prepare for a German attack on mainland Britain.  When the British reject a barbed peace offering from the Germans, it is not long before the Luftwaffe are pounding the southeast of England with a series of aerial bombardments intended to obliterate the country’s air defences ahead of a full-scale invasion.  The British reaction is swift, but light air strikes on Berlin merely provoke the Nazis into changing their strategy and launching an all-out attack on London.  This proves to be a costly error.  The German military may have accurately assessed the strength of the British air force, but they have severely underestimated the resourcefulness and resilience of their opponents...

With its star-studded cast and a budget of $12 million, this epic account of one of the most important chapters in British military history deserves to be a great film and a fitting tribute to those few who did so much for their country with so little (or words to that effect).   And indeed Battle of Britain has some impressive moments – the action sequences are spectacular even by the standards of a blockbuster production – but the film falls short of its potential.  With so much going on and such a big story to tell in such a limited space, there is little space for character development, so it isn’t surprising that most of the protagonists in this monumental drama are little more than crude ciphers whilst some (notably the Germans) are blatant caricatures (including an Adolf Hitler who looks like he was left over from a bad Monty Python sketch).  

The film would have been a challenge for any director and Guy Hamilton makes a reasonable stab at it, although he is not as successful here as he was with his previous wartime drama, The Colditz Story (1955).  It is the scale of undertaking that clearly overwhelmed Hamilton.  He had already demonstrated, in his work on Goldfinger (1964), the most highly rated of the James Bond movies, a flair for action-adventure and it is the action sequences in Battle of Britain where he is most inspired.  Elsewhere, the director has difficulty getting the best out of his battalion of iconic screen actors and only just manages to put together a coherent narrative.  

What saves Battle of Britain and makes it a classic of its genre are the authentic recreations of the air battles, which were shot with the last surviving Spitfires, piloted by veteran flyers.   Not only are these sequences utterly gripping, providing an unflinching portrait of aerial combat, but they are also beautifully composed – there is a balletic poetry about them, which is heightened by a piece of music that Sir William Walton composed especially for the film.

The German attack on London is also stunningly realised and provides the film with some of its most poignant and harrowing scenes.  These startling images serve as an effective reminder of how spectacularly close to defeat Britain came during WWII and how the courage and initiative of a few brave souls managed to repel an over-confident invader and, in doing so, change the course of the war.  If this film helps to preserve the memory of this event, it will have done its job.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

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