After Action Report: Battle of Britain
Greetings WingNuts,
Let it be said of Battle of Britain (1969) that it ws no An American Werewolf in Paris. We joke a lot in this series about boring war movies and... boy was that a boring war movie. The thrilling air battles that enchanted us as children aren't quite as spectacular today and Battle of Britain's 'character adjacent' war story seems pretty plodding. But you can see the bones of why it enchanted so many once upon a time: the air battles, a mix of real vintage aircraft and exceptional model work, are impressive and the entirety of the very long production is full of impressive quality sets and costumes. It's a great culmination of the kind of movie The Dam Busters kicked off fifteen years earlier... but it sure seemed slow as we got through the second hour!
The obvious connections to Wing Commander were also a little tough to pick out. The biggest influence on the movie must have been the well-choreographed dogfights (versus ones cut together from stock footage in a movie like Miidway). This does seem like the 1969 equivalent of how the Wing Commander movie was made: real aircraft for closeups and special effects for the wide ones.
In fact, I couldn't help but notice how similar the Spitfire backdrops looked like the simple ones created for the Border Worlds Banshees in Wing Commander IV:
We talked a little about Fleet Action's reference to Churchill's June 4, 1940 "we shall fight on the beaches" speech. The movie doesn't feature the speech itself but it does have Baron von Richter, the German ambassador to Switzerland, making fun of it! Here's the famous portion of the speech referenced in Fleet Action:
Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. And even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old.
Sully was also bored this time around. So much so that he got stuck upside down.
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