"Above and Beyond" (2006) TV mini-series

Director:

Sturla Gunnarsson

Writers:

John W. Doyle (writer)
Lisa Porter (writer)

Release Date:

29 October 2006 (Canada)

Genre:

Drama | War

Plot:

True Story about the Atlantic Ferry Operation during World War II.

Plot Keywords:

Ferry | TV Mini-Series | Newfoundland | WWII

Awards:

4 wins & 6 nominations

Cast

Liane Balaban	...	Shelagh Emberly
Jonathan Scarfe	...	Bill Jacobson
Allan Hawco	...	Nathan Burgess
Peter MacNeill	...	Gen. Anderson
Robert Wisden	...	Pritchard
Joss Ackland	...	Winston Churchill
Jason Priestley	...	Sir Frederick Banting
Kenneth Welsh	...	Lord Beaverbrook
Richard E. Grant	...	Don Bennett
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
R.J. Adams	...	Sarg
Mark Caven	...	Group Captain Martin
Robert Chafe	...	Tailor
Steve Cochrane	...	Harrison
Mika Collins	...	Vanessa
Mark Critch	...	Pittman
Sean Wayne Doyle	...	Rider
Darryl Flatman	...	Jeffers
Brad Hodder	...	Worchuk
Mike Kiss	...	Dales
Sonia Laplante	...	Liz
Robert Latimer	...	Crowley
Leah Lewis	...	Rosie Burgess
Mary Lewis	...	Sheila
Natalie Lisinska	...	Miss Bogston
James Mainprize	...	First Lord
Roger Maunder	...	Cowboy
Peter Messaline	...	Sinclair
Jonathan Montes	...	Jazz Waiter
Tony Munch	...	Joe Mackey
Michael C. Newsome	...	BBC Radio Announcer
Mark O'Brien	...	Drake
Allissa Ourakova	...	Dancer
Anthony Paton	...	Minister
Tom Smart	...	Radioman
Pete Soucy	...	Sadler
Austin Strugnell	...	Duffy

Country:

Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Australia:M | Netherlands:12 | Australia:PG (DVD rating)

Filming Locations:

Gander, Newfoundland, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Company:

Pope Productions

Trivia:

The closing epilogue of this TV mini-series states: "Bennett's team became the heart of the R.A.F. Ferry Command. With their American allies they delivered over 25,000 aircraft from Newfoundland, changing the course of the war. More than 500 men and women died flying for Ferry Command. Captain Don Bennett went onto found and lead the Pathfinders, an elite group of pilots who led Allied bombers to their targets in Nazi Germany."

Goofs:

Anachronisms: Newfoundland Airport manager is working on a piece of equipment which has three transistors visible. Transistors were not invented until 1947.

Well intentioned but dreadful

Here is a television mini-series that one wills to be good, but all the wishful thinking in the world can't forgive its flaws. On the plus side, the setting is authentic in terms of greater geographic area and the cast does fairly well despite a sophomoric and uninspired script. Poor Joss Akland does his best although he is badly miscast as Winston Churchill. On the minus side, the film's budget was too low to allow the story to be well told or the period convincingly evoked. There are simply too many historical inaccuracies, too few of the right types of airplanes (and many that are inappropriate), and too much reliance on amateurish and unconvincing computer-generated aerial sequences that serve only to squander credibility. Sadly, the more one knows of history, the less forgivable these failings become.

I should perhaps reserve judgment because I did not see more than a third of Above and Beyond. I turned it off (something I rarely do with aviation films) in utter disgust after a Lockheed Hudson makes a crash landing due to an engine fire. The orchestration of this emergency and its cheesy digital realization were so ludicrously inept that the producers should have fired their technical adviser on the spot. That is, if they even had one. I suspect they didn't because the interior mock-up of the Hudson cockpit entirely lacked a pilot's side window. Hello! All in all, this mini-series was a promising concept that ended up doing a disservice to those who actually organized and performed those transatlantic ferry flights early in World War II. Here was an opportunity -- unfortunately missed -- to make up for Captains of the Clouds, the 1942 Jimmy Cagney film that likewise ends with an unconvincing depiction of Hudsons being ferried from Canada to the United Kingdom.