New film, “Battle over Britain”
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New film, “Battle over Britain”
Saw a review today of a new film coming to the cinema: “Battle over Britain”. From the same team that did “Lancaster Skies” so I look forward to the informed opinions of PPruners. From the trailer the flying looks OK but the haircuts less so!
And a review in the Guardian..
This unabashedly retro war story, set over 24 hours in August 1940, strips the action down to the rivets with a small cast and a handful of locations, including the cockpits of several Spitfire planes (or perhaps one plane used to stand in for several). You’d think it might have cost no more than a tin of biscuits and few packets of tea to make – except that the aerial photography, never a cheap component, looks authentic and presumably special effects were required to create the dogfights in which our heroic fly-boys duke it out in the skies against the Luftwaffe.
Directed by Callum Burn and co-written by him and his father Andrew, it’s of a piece with the previous features from their Lincolnshire production company Tin Hat, specialists in second world war tales of heroism and aerial derring-do. Given the numbers of actual veterans and survivors of the conflict are swiftly dwindling now, you have to wonder how much interest is out there to make this tiny niche in film production profitable. Presumably, there are enough people who yearn for a simpler time when men were men, women wore boilersuits and everyone was pretty much united in one virtuous common cause.
The slightly dodgy figure here is Nathan Walker (Vin Hawke, good even if the haircut is more 2020s footballer than 1940s pilot), who is obsessed with winning the betting pool on who can shoot down the most Jerries. His cynicism puts him at odds with his fellow pilots, especially Cochrane (Tom Gordon) and wistful Cooper (Micky David) who wants to survive long enough to marry his sweetheart Nancy (Hannah Harris, rocking the aforementioned boilersuit). In between missions up in the air fighting the enemy, the men relax at the dispatch hut near the runway and banter. The ringing of the telephone becomes a frequent augur of death: after each sortie someone won’t come back, or might land just in time to die accompanied by some sentimental music.
One’s lip would have to be stiff as postwar Festival of Britain-era concrete not to find such sacrifices at least a tiny bit moving – at least the first few times, but it does get a bit monotonous. Still, plaudits to the Tin Hat team for keeping the home fires burning for those who served.
Battle Over Britain is released on 1 December in UK cinemas.
Directed by Callum Burn and co-written by him and his father Andrew, it’s of a piece with the previous features from their Lincolnshire production company Tin Hat, specialists in second world war tales of heroism and aerial derring-do. Given the numbers of actual veterans and survivors of the conflict are swiftly dwindling now, you have to wonder how much interest is out there to make this tiny niche in film production profitable. Presumably, there are enough people who yearn for a simpler time when men were men, women wore boilersuits and everyone was pretty much united in one virtuous common cause.
The slightly dodgy figure here is Nathan Walker (Vin Hawke, good even if the haircut is more 2020s footballer than 1940s pilot), who is obsessed with winning the betting pool on who can shoot down the most Jerries. His cynicism puts him at odds with his fellow pilots, especially Cochrane (Tom Gordon) and wistful Cooper (Micky David) who wants to survive long enough to marry his sweetheart Nancy (Hannah Harris, rocking the aforementioned boilersuit). In between missions up in the air fighting the enemy, the men relax at the dispatch hut near the runway and banter. The ringing of the telephone becomes a frequent augur of death: after each sortie someone won’t come back, or might land just in time to die accompanied by some sentimental music.
One’s lip would have to be stiff as postwar Festival of Britain-era concrete not to find such sacrifices at least a tiny bit moving – at least the first few times, but it does get a bit monotonous. Still, plaudits to the Tin Hat team for keeping the home fires burning for those who served.
Battle Over Britain is released on 1 December in UK cinemas.
The following 2 users liked this post by VM325:
I’m pretty sure 1940 wasn’t “at the height of the war”. One to miss, anyway, from the trailer.
To be fair, I don't recall seeing an Hurricanes in the classic Battle of Britian and no one seemed to complain...
Aside - while the BoB special effects were not bad for when it was made, I wouldn't mind seeing someone with the talents of a James Cameron take the original BoB and update it with modern special effects (yes, the dreaded CGI) while retaining most of the original action using actual vintage aircraft (if not the exact vintage) and those great actors.
Aside - while the BoB special effects were not bad for when it was made, I wouldn't mind seeing someone with the talents of a James Cameron take the original BoB and update it with modern special effects (yes, the dreaded CGI) while retaining most of the original action using actual vintage aircraft (if not the exact vintage) and those great actors.
The following 4 users liked this post by Video Mixdown:
My late uncle was a Hurricane pilot in WWII, and never missed an opportunity to point out that there were many more Hurricanes than Spitfires involved and that, overall, the Hurricane was the better fighter and made the greater contribution to the outcome. His view was that the only reason the Spitfire got so much more attention was because it was a prettier looking aeroplane and film makers chose to highlight it because of that. I can't dispute his view, the Spitfire is a simply beautiful flying machine to look at. My (very) brief time flying one is a memory that stands out above all others, mostly because the view out over that elliptical wing is simply stunning (even if it does sound like a thousand out of tune tractors idling from inside the cockpit).
Still like to see an updated version using modern special effects while retaining the original real-aircraft flying scenes.
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Mind you, at one point the three Hurricanes they mustered were supplemented with three 109s (well Buchons), think it's the "Silence in Polish" sequence.
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It doesn't need 'updating'. It is a fine film that would be ruined by pasting in a load of hokey computer graphics.
The following 4 users liked this post by Video Mixdown:
Heck, I found that annoying when I saw BoB in the theater when it was originally released...