Not many films stick with me for years but this one did and now that I've just watched it again I think the same will happen for the next few years.
It is a lightweight, afternoon type of film with no stand out performances (John Gregson is standard Jon Gregson - not to my taste, Muriel Pavlow doesn't get a chance to act much and so on), no stand out dialogue, no wow plot. But what it does have is bags of sense of time and place and a unique (as far as I've seen) social documentary type quality look at the RAF in the mid 1950s and conflict with conservancy. I think the quality of light, the locations chosen and the soundtrack (not music but ambient) are what do it for me.
There is annoying animal sub plot sewn in, I would guess for kids' interest, that is weak.
If the acting, dialogue or plot had been distinctive this could have been an 8 or 9 for me.
It is a lightweight, afternoon type of film with no stand out performances (John Gregson is standard Jon Gregson - not to my taste, Muriel Pavlow doesn't get a chance to act much and so on), no stand out dialogue, no wow plot. But what it does have is bags of sense of time and place and a unique (as far as I've seen) social documentary type quality look at the RAF in the mid 1950s and conflict with conservancy. I think the quality of light, the locations chosen and the soundtrack (not music but ambient) are what do it for me.
There is annoying animal sub plot sewn in, I would guess for kids' interest, that is weak.
If the acting, dialogue or plot had been distinctive this could have been an 8 or 9 for me.