Reach for the Sky (1956)

Reach for the Sky is a British war film first released in 1956, directed by Lewis Gilbert.  The film is based on a novel by Paul Brickhill and stars Kenneth More, Muriel Pavlow, Lyndon Brook, Lee Patterson and Alexander Knox.  Our overall rating for this film is: very good.


In 1931, a few years after enrolling as an officer cadet in the Royal Air Force, 21-year-old Douglas Bader has his dreams shattered when he crashes an aeroplane in a foolish show of bravado.  Both of his legs are amputated but his spirit is unbroken and he swears he will fly again.  Equipped with a pair of tin legs, Bader is soon back on his feet and manages to demonstrate to his superiors that he can still fly an aircraft.  Enthusiasm is not enough, however, and Bader is grounded for his disability.  Lacking the stomach for a desk job, Bader leaves the RAF and ends up doing routine work in an office.  He relieves his boredom by getting married and taking up golf.  With the prospect of war looming, Bader manages to get himself reinstated in the RAF and he is soon appointed leader of his own squadron.  In the summer of 1940, Bader distinguishes himself in the Battle of Britain, using tactics that effectively neutralise attacks by the Luftwaffe with minimal casualties to his own side.  On his next mission, a sortie over France, Bader is less successful.  But his story is far from over...

Although somewhat dated by its modest production values and whiff of 1950s-style melodrama, Reach for the Sky still manages to hit the mark with its inspiring portrait of one man’s determination to overcome adversity in the face of overwhelming odds.  Paul Brickhill’s account of the life of Douglas Bader is both moving and fantastic and would have made a great film whoever was in the driving seat.  With someone of the calibre of Lewis Gilbert directing and Kenneth More playing Bader with the utmost sincerity the film could hardly fail, and no wonder it proved to be the most successful British film of 1956.

The film does occasionally veer towards flagrant mawkishness but More’s solid performance (which makes Bader appear far more amiable than he was reputed to be in real life) retains our sympathy and we cannot be unmoved by the story of a man with a seemingly unbreakable spirit.  It is a shame that none of the secondary characters is anywhere near as well-developed – these serve merely as ciphers to show what an exceptional man Bader was.  No surprise then that we are left with the impression that Bader was a kind of Indiana Jones figure, an invincible hero who single-handedly won the Battle of Britain before spending the rest of the war enacting The Great Escape.  It doesn’t help that the air battle scenes are poorly executed, with grainy stock footage standing in for shots that were presumably beyond the constraints of the budget.

Far more effective than the re-enactment of Bader’s wartime adventures is the account of his accident and convalescence, which is all the more poignant for the understated way in which the film tells the story.  In these scenes, Kenneth More plays Bader not as a conventional gung-ho hero, but an ordinary hot-headed young man who refuses to be beaten by a mere thing like having his legs removed.  The film makes it apparent that Bader’s greatest achievement was not his contribution to the defeat of Fascism in WWII (creditable as that was), but his success in overcoming a live-changing disability, winning back his mobility and freedom through an extraordinary show of courage and determination.  This is true heroism – and an inspiration to us all.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

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