This is really a splendid, albeit low budget(made for TV) production, the action scenes are, by my reckoning, 100% war time stock film footage. The quote above is a scene from Harris meeting with Churchill, played by Robert Hardy, who before becoming Harry Potter's Cornelius Fudge, had all but made a career out of playing Churchill. John Thaw is brilliant in the lead role and his first assistant staff officer Weldon played by John Nettleton is equally brilliant.
From the standpoint of 'the victor writes the history' this is an interesting counter point to the American version, where you will see movies like "The Thousand Plane Raid" promote the U. S. strategy of daylight bombing as the "key to victory". No doubt equal arguments can be made either way and nobody knows for certain what other strategy's might have produced. It's unquestionable the American's took enormous loss's from the audacity or foolishness as it would be described by RAF command in operating in day time.
The points of the Dresden bombing are fairly well made and give the "illusion" of a moral component. In some ways you could view Harris as the British equivalent of Patton, an officer who understood the dire consequences of failure, regardless of method.
I really like how this semi-historical drama of a movie played out, and while you could certainly complain that it's length was inadequate in telling the full story it still does a remarkable job. The faux wars being generated today are nothing in comparison to the stakes of an actual war for survival.
Moonlight Sonata as the ever present backdrop was a perfect choice, and the interspersed period musical interludes adapt very well to the cut scenes of live footage. Chattanooga Choo Choo, Berlin or Bust, among others, the sound track stands out as faultless. This is really a throwback to the golden age of movies before todays billion dollar green screen productions took over. Well done!
From the standpoint of 'the victor writes the history' this is an interesting counter point to the American version, where you will see movies like "The Thousand Plane Raid" promote the U. S. strategy of daylight bombing as the "key to victory". No doubt equal arguments can be made either way and nobody knows for certain what other strategy's might have produced. It's unquestionable the American's took enormous loss's from the audacity or foolishness as it would be described by RAF command in operating in day time.
The points of the Dresden bombing are fairly well made and give the "illusion" of a moral component. In some ways you could view Harris as the British equivalent of Patton, an officer who understood the dire consequences of failure, regardless of method.
I really like how this semi-historical drama of a movie played out, and while you could certainly complain that it's length was inadequate in telling the full story it still does a remarkable job. The faux wars being generated today are nothing in comparison to the stakes of an actual war for survival.
Moonlight Sonata as the ever present backdrop was a perfect choice, and the interspersed period musical interludes adapt very well to the cut scenes of live footage. Chattanooga Choo Choo, Berlin or Bust, among others, the sound track stands out as faultless. This is really a throwback to the golden age of movies before todays billion dollar green screen productions took over. Well done!