The Few: The Battle of Britain (1969)
Not really a fan of war movies or their finest hour rehashes, though a keen student of history. But this Hamilton, Saltzman, Palmer and Fisz Second World War movie had me gripped for many reasons…
Firstly, the cinematography by none other than Freddie Young. (See Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, Ryan’s Daughter, You Only Live Twice for more of his wonderful work). The planes are the stars and the camerawork conjures up big skies, movement. The fear of not knowing where your enemy is or where they will appear from; also the thrill of it.
In its plot, enemies are human beings, not monsters. The Nazis over the other side of the Channel are radically portrayed as human beings — elitist, fine dining, perhaps culturally snobbish, enjoying the good things of life and having fun doing so. But the movie isn’t afraid to portray them as human beings, though also enslaved to a destructive system and choosing evil and to do evil. They have friendships, camaraderie, jokes, banter, even chaffing and resentment at hierarchy as the supreme commander in his shiny chauffeur driven car turns up to kick everyone in to action and prance around a bit with an over elaborate stick of honour. Some are envious, some express disbelief at how they’re being treated — and how he behaves. There is dissent in their apparent uniformity and ‘unity’.
Hitler too is a human being. Though the camera does something thrilling here — everything goes really wide (almost panoramic), so that we see the vast expanse of space within the hall where he speaking. He looks very small rather than a superman. Whoever’s playing Hitler is also very clever — he isn’t ranting and frothing at the mouth, he’s calm, measured, passionate, given to wild hand gestures certainly, but reasoned and persuasive in his talking. It’s the people’s response that is madness —close angled shots cut to young women, lots of women, children, young people, old people all giving the Nazi salute in rapturous, ardent abandon. Yet see how brainwashed, crazy, inhuman they are in paying worshipping tribute to this horrible man, these horrible symbols, this horrible cruel system. They’re monstrous, inhuman. ‘Aha!’, says the film, look at how ‘normal’ people, everyday people like you and I can get swept along in mass evil and othering others to death and torture and brutal treatment. Reflect on this — they’re just like us. It doesn’t in any way make this evil regime appealing — but it holds a mirror up and says ‘they could be us, he or she could be you’. What are you going to do about it?
Given how recent the history being explored in this movie is when it was made (1969), it’s incredibly brave and we won’t see its like again until The Zone of Interest or to an extent Jo Jo Rabbit.
Nuanced too. The focus is on the women as much as the men and the ground as much as the planes. There’s sexism — petty and large, a strong willed relationship and lover story between service personnel masterfully played by Susannah York and Christopher Plummer. She’s strong — he’s the one who’s fearful when the bombers come. He’s having to come to terms with a woman having a career — just like him, and who can choose where she wants to be, where she wants to work — and who she wants to be with. Later, she will have to face what happens to pilots in war.
Trevor Howard plays a beautifully tender part as a man who knows the odds, and keeps almost tearfully, regretfully saying ‘we need more pilots’. It’s impossible and yet they keep on going. This is a young man’s war, a youthful war, and the young men of the Allied and Axis powers are constantly contrasted. The UK’s young men lounge affably, cheerfully, before setting off on their next mission — even sun bathing. Yet the UK’s forces and resources are creaking at the seams, leaking with losses, and we see this most in the pilots who don’t return (and also in the broken, shabby urban Blitz scenes).
Where the difference comes into play is when Berlin is unexpectedly bombed — the Allies have changed tactics! The Germans didn’t expect a taste of their own tactics from such a weakened opponent. They experience the same horror as the pilots and civilians felt earlier on when suddenly the Germans were coming for London, turning unexpectedly. Groomed, wealthy, comfortable Berliners flee in panic in all directions, trampling shopping — and each other.. It could never happen to them! By contrast battered, expecting invasion soon Britain can take it — people stagger out the ruins of collapsed buildings and streets calmly, taking it all in their stride.
Incase almost two hours of planes are too much(!), there are some interwoven human dramas. Whilst not being beastly to the Germans, the Polish pilots (our allies) are treated abysmally. Very Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines, they’re unruly, won’t speak English and ignore ‘sensible British’ orders at every turn. Treated en-masse, they represent all the Allied personnel (of invaded countries and Empire, maybe the same thing) and not very well at that. Their pompous English controller similarly wants to be top dog and won’t learn Polish. They’re meant to provide a comic touch, but their treatment is insulting. Thank goodness Hurricane restored the balance later.
Equally idiotic are the ‘rurals’ who appear not to get mechanisation and have wandered out of a pastoral ‘oo arrr’ 18th century agricultural system. They’re so backward they can’t tell Polish airmen parachuted out of burning planes from Germans guffaws the film. Nowhere are the thousands of Imperial/Commonwealth troops who served alongside their white counterparts in the UK and throughout the British Empire — which is a deep shame. The comic Poles have a heavy burden on their shoulders — representing ‘everyone else’. Along with the women’s stubbornly 1960’s helmet hair (this is a modern, barrel/victory roll free zone!) and York’s pixie cut, this is the movie’s only weakness. It’s only unexpected foray into othering — purely for comic relief.
It’s lovely to see Ian McShane pop up as a dashing romantic lead, arguing with his strong wife about whether she and his boys should stay evacuated in the country or not. He just wants them to be safe (i.e. alive). She wants to be with her community, with the familiar, with friends, neighbours and family — and probably with easier access to resources in some ways. And in many ways not. They’re sheltered in a church hall — he goes — cos no-one else will to help rescue a bombed out family — who are found shattered and possibly dead — and returns to find the hall aflame. The agony in this moment.
We don’t know until we see some bunk beds later that they’re still with us — his eyes are glistening with tears as he enters the car for an early morning start. With the men leaving their women and children, we’re reminded of some of the things they’re fighting for — and to defend and protect.
Also popping up is Michael Caine as a pilot — and Laurence Olivier as top brass! Along with Michael Redgrave, Curd (Curt) Jürgens, Ralph Richardson, Edward Fox, Robert Shaw, Kenneth More and Van der Valk, Barry Foster. The starriest of starry casts.
Throughout we feel the tension and the pathos on both sides as they try to plot and anticipate what the enemy is up to. Invasion and collapse seem imminent — the Germans celebrate their victories (and capture of useful British resources) with elaborate really good meals. They’re lining up to face the Channel. The Allies rejoice because the Germans are wasting time, they’ve come so far and now stalled. What a mistake because battered Britain can now regroup. A young pilot staggers out of a smoking plane, the only one of his crew to return. Another jettisons straight into a greenhouse and an admiring young boy fetches him a cigar. Small boys play with treasured model planes made by their father; other watch the dog fights overhead with trainspottery fascination.
What are they doing each side constantly ask the maps and reports and information they pore over?
But this is so much more. York and Plummer’s lovers make promises to each other, realising who close life and death are intertwined. Encountering a surviving, though badly burned pilot (and probably a early recipient of restorative facial reconstruction from Harold Gillies), York’s character is later to realise that the same thing may have happened to her lover at the end — and what that means for them. Using silence — it’s the naturalistic pauses and stutters in conversation — which allow us as the audience to fill in the gaps, and really get into the characters thoughts and feelings. She gets her transfer to be nearer him at long last — but at what cost?
The shots within the cockpits are terrific and terrifying. We celebrate the victories as an enemy plane is downed, but also encounter the horror — of not being able to open a ‘chute, of being trapped inside a burning plane about to smash into sea or land. The same with the bombing of Berlin — the scattered terror of complacent citizens going about their happy, enjoyable everyday lives makes us consider the cost of war — in Dresden, Coventry and so many other places. And yet, having seen Hitler’s speech and the people’s reaction, we’ve already counted the cost. Subdued and somber, the German pilots gather for their plus dinner — though there are several empty chairs, creating gaps in the company. Similarly, the camera caught the grief caught in the waiting dog’s face — for the master who never returns.
Wonderful were the shots over the industrial docklands of London as bombs dropped — and small boys watched. I’m sure we were looking at where the Millennium Dome is now. The sense of the people behind and under the targets, the places, was immense. Same as when the RAF base was attacked — and they needed to decamp to inferior lodgings…again.
For all the new tech such as sonar, radar and radio, this is still a personal war. We see the skill it takes to precision bomb a target, to look in the sky beyond the dazzle and haze of the sun to find your enemy coming for you — and to maneuver yourself out the way.
A commemoration of the waste of youth too for an evil cause and man. Yet a celebration (in its compelling and suspenseful story) of duty, of sacrifice, of lost youth and lives, of courage, of the few who did and gave so much for so many and remembering the civilian costs too.
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