"The Battle of Britain" is a first-class piece of work. "James Bond" co-producer Harry Saltzman spared on expense on making this (heavily telescoped) tribute to the men and women who kept Hitler from invading Britain in 1940. And the money appears on the screen.
Cameraman Freddie Young had already filmed movies like "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Doctor Zhivago" so he had no fear of the epic scope. The cinematography is one of the movie's greatest assets, though shots are held longer then than today, for an audience that grew up watching music videos.
Maestro Sir William Walton ( considered the most important English composer after Elgar) was credited with the score, as conducted by composer Malcolm Arnold (later "Sir"). But here is where the movie begins to unravel. United Artists actually rejected the Walton score, so Ron Goodwin, a professional film composer who had done some big war movies, was brought in to do a replacement score, including the jaunty but overused march. Walton mendaciously gets a large credit.
Directed by Guy Hamilton ("Goldfinger") "The Battle of Britain" is chock-full of some of Britain's best-regarded actors and movie stars. Legendary Laurence Olivier has the lion's share of screen time as Air Marshal Hugh Dowding, while other real people are portrayed by Ralph Richardson, Michael Redgrave, Patrick Wymark and Trevor Howard, all in cameo roles. Other recognizable actors litter the film in tiny parts (Michael Caine, Edward Fox, Ian McShane, Harry Andrews, Robert Shaw, Barry Foster, Nigel Patrick . . . and so on!) This was a good advertising ploy. And it helps the viewer realize that these are actually different people. In a vast film that focuses on several RAF airfields where the similarities might otherwise have been confusing, and which takes us to many otherwise faceless bureaucrats and high-ranking officers who might look the same in uniform, it's good to have recognizable faces. Michael Caine and Robert Shaw are wily enough actors to give us different characters for leaders of their various squadrons.
So why doesn't the film work? For me, several reasons.
First, the tacked-on love story between Christopher Plummer and Susannah York doesn't have enough screen time to make me care. Neither does the cloying saga of flyer Ian McShane and his family. We might know the actors but the characters are not strong enough for us to care. Having Michael Redgrave in what amounts to a walk-on as one of the brass hats and Harry Andrews glimpsed as an unnamed bureaucrat helps us diversify similar characters (if characters they be). Personal stories can work against a vast backdrop of prominent historical events ("Gone with the Wind" or "Doctor Zhivago") but there the focus is on the characters. Here, the big events and strategy of the Battle of Britain swallow personal stories, which waste screen time that might be better used to explain just what on earth is going on.
This is the fault of the screenwriters. While many scenes, however heavy, end on either a good laugh line or a shocking one, the writers simply had too much material and the script takes off running in too many directions at once. Olivier does his best to hold the film together, but he's not given the more ample screen time afforded composite characters E. G. Marshall and Wesley Addy in the superior "Tora Tora Tora" (which tells both sides of the bombing of Hawaii by the Japanese in 1941).
Most deadly, for people like me who don't know one airplane from another, are the meaningless aerial shots. I suppose, given the film's "David v. Goliath" approach, the shots of many planes are the Germans while the shots with the fewer planes are English. My father grew up in the war and recognized these planes by their silhouettes, but who knows these day? Furthermore, the pilots all wear masks. We can recognize Michael Caine by his dead eyes, but lots of the other pilots are unrecognizable in the battle scenes ("Star Wars" had the sense to have X-wing pilots, without masks, despite being way out in space).
And while the English are differentiated by having good actors or stars playing various parts (okay, that's Edward Fox waiting at his airfield for incoming planes, and that's the same guy parachuting into the greenhouse), the German actors, while they sound perfectly fine, are nearly all unknown to American audiences (apart from Curd Jurgens).
"The Battle of Britain" was a noble attempt. A beautifully-shot movie with lots of name actors showing why they became stars by making the most of tiny parts (proving the adage, there are no small roles, only small actors). But the cloying sentimentality of the unnecessary "personal" stories (the Battle of Britain isn't exciting enough?), the aerial confusion, the lack of a center despite Olivier's valiant effort to hold the reins, and the disappointment of seeing favorite actors (in my case, Michael Redgrave) reduced to bit players (to be fair, it appears large chunks of the movie were edited to give it a bladder-respecting running time--you don't want audience members rushing to the restrooms and miss any of the interminable airplane shots) all conspire against this flick. Along with the fact that the movie is so telescoped in time, one needs to read a book on the Battle of Britain beforehand to really comprehend what's happening.
Perhaps, if the edited chunks still survive, a "director's cut" might improve it like a miniseries. But as Guy Hamilton died in 2016, that's unlikely. Nor would DVD rentals return the expense.
Cameraman Freddie Young had already filmed movies like "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Doctor Zhivago" so he had no fear of the epic scope. The cinematography is one of the movie's greatest assets, though shots are held longer then than today, for an audience that grew up watching music videos.
Maestro Sir William Walton ( considered the most important English composer after Elgar) was credited with the score, as conducted by composer Malcolm Arnold (later "Sir"). But here is where the movie begins to unravel. United Artists actually rejected the Walton score, so Ron Goodwin, a professional film composer who had done some big war movies, was brought in to do a replacement score, including the jaunty but overused march. Walton mendaciously gets a large credit.
Directed by Guy Hamilton ("Goldfinger") "The Battle of Britain" is chock-full of some of Britain's best-regarded actors and movie stars. Legendary Laurence Olivier has the lion's share of screen time as Air Marshal Hugh Dowding, while other real people are portrayed by Ralph Richardson, Michael Redgrave, Patrick Wymark and Trevor Howard, all in cameo roles. Other recognizable actors litter the film in tiny parts (Michael Caine, Edward Fox, Ian McShane, Harry Andrews, Robert Shaw, Barry Foster, Nigel Patrick . . . and so on!) This was a good advertising ploy. And it helps the viewer realize that these are actually different people. In a vast film that focuses on several RAF airfields where the similarities might otherwise have been confusing, and which takes us to many otherwise faceless bureaucrats and high-ranking officers who might look the same in uniform, it's good to have recognizable faces. Michael Caine and Robert Shaw are wily enough actors to give us different characters for leaders of their various squadrons.
So why doesn't the film work? For me, several reasons.
First, the tacked-on love story between Christopher Plummer and Susannah York doesn't have enough screen time to make me care. Neither does the cloying saga of flyer Ian McShane and his family. We might know the actors but the characters are not strong enough for us to care. Having Michael Redgrave in what amounts to a walk-on as one of the brass hats and Harry Andrews glimpsed as an unnamed bureaucrat helps us diversify similar characters (if characters they be). Personal stories can work against a vast backdrop of prominent historical events ("Gone with the Wind" or "Doctor Zhivago") but there the focus is on the characters. Here, the big events and strategy of the Battle of Britain swallow personal stories, which waste screen time that might be better used to explain just what on earth is going on.
This is the fault of the screenwriters. While many scenes, however heavy, end on either a good laugh line or a shocking one, the writers simply had too much material and the script takes off running in too many directions at once. Olivier does his best to hold the film together, but he's not given the more ample screen time afforded composite characters E. G. Marshall and Wesley Addy in the superior "Tora Tora Tora" (which tells both sides of the bombing of Hawaii by the Japanese in 1941).
Most deadly, for people like me who don't know one airplane from another, are the meaningless aerial shots. I suppose, given the film's "David v. Goliath" approach, the shots of many planes are the Germans while the shots with the fewer planes are English. My father grew up in the war and recognized these planes by their silhouettes, but who knows these day? Furthermore, the pilots all wear masks. We can recognize Michael Caine by his dead eyes, but lots of the other pilots are unrecognizable in the battle scenes ("Star Wars" had the sense to have X-wing pilots, without masks, despite being way out in space).
And while the English are differentiated by having good actors or stars playing various parts (okay, that's Edward Fox waiting at his airfield for incoming planes, and that's the same guy parachuting into the greenhouse), the German actors, while they sound perfectly fine, are nearly all unknown to American audiences (apart from Curd Jurgens).
"The Battle of Britain" was a noble attempt. A beautifully-shot movie with lots of name actors showing why they became stars by making the most of tiny parts (proving the adage, there are no small roles, only small actors). But the cloying sentimentality of the unnecessary "personal" stories (the Battle of Britain isn't exciting enough?), the aerial confusion, the lack of a center despite Olivier's valiant effort to hold the reins, and the disappointment of seeing favorite actors (in my case, Michael Redgrave) reduced to bit players (to be fair, it appears large chunks of the movie were edited to give it a bladder-respecting running time--you don't want audience members rushing to the restrooms and miss any of the interminable airplane shots) all conspire against this flick. Along with the fact that the movie is so telescoped in time, one needs to read a book on the Battle of Britain beforehand to really comprehend what's happening.
Perhaps, if the edited chunks still survive, a "director's cut" might improve it like a miniseries. But as Guy Hamilton died in 2016, that's unlikely. Nor would DVD rentals return the expense.