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#1
17-09-04, 09:58
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Quote:
Of course!!!! How could we forget that; we need to say it in unison however. "They got the Rose and Craan!" " 'ee'll 'ave to drink at the Red Lion naa; if they'll 'ave 'im" Regrettably Geoff, I'm not well up on "The Way Ahead", you have to remember before the days of 11.5GHz digital data streams from the skies and with just four 600MHz analogue offerings, we were presented with BoB on a very regular basis. If I might present the view for this side, it does illustrate some typical scenarios of the era for all elements of life and the character direction is good, especially the side shot of the Stanmore plotting table balcony where the actors chosen are near doubles of the people often seen in the original and real shot. In fact the major players are quite good representations of the real people in the case of Park, Leigh-Mallory and Dowding. Some of the props and fakes are a bit obvious though and the theatrical fire-balls are pure Hollywood. It does tend to suggest again that you could fly around for hours in a Spitfire/Hurricane and expend limitless ammo, whereas the truth is a typical sortie duration of little over 1 hour and 14 secs of ammo. I wish too they'd have removed that very obvious plastic bell push from the cottage door frame. It only touches on the distain and snootyness of the regular RAF pilots who treated the trawled-in ex-civvy and RAF reserve sergeant pilots in a very shabby manner. Also it misses the quite despicable official handling of "Stuffy" Dowding who was called back to set the show up and officially retired/re-called several times during the war only to be heaved out when it was over in 1941; real history does at least record the huge contribution he made not only in effectively winning the BoB by good management but earlier in the design competitions that lead to the Hurricane and Spitfire, plus his foresight in the building of early radar stations and their integration into an effective command and control network. Indeed you could argue Dowding had won the BoB before it started. Perhaps, like the other BoB (Brothers) it would have had more impact using unknown actors rather than instantly recognisable big names, but we'd have missed the rather tasty Don't-you-yell-at-me, Mr Warwick, Susannah York. . . . . . . . . . Probably being made in the days when it was perceived that the cast names sold the film rather than the content. Of course it awfully easy to sit here and be a computer-chair critic; could I have done better? I think not. I'm minded from way back Geoff and I have a idea to do a "proper" film about the events around Caen in 1944; trouble is, by looking at the UK/Canadian side only we just have my two and sixpence ha'penny in the budget kitty and little chance of serious multi-million funding. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  : R. 
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