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Of all the insults to our intelligence in "The Battle of Britain," perhaps the very worst is when Michael Caine's dog looks wistfully up into the sky and whines for his master to return. We are asked to applaud heroism because of the discomfort it causes dogs. There was hardly a wet eye in the house.

"Battle of Britain," in fact, is a throwback to those phony war movies of the 1940s. Remember the obligatory scene of the dashing young pilots lounging around the officers' club? Suddenly the attack alarm sounds, and they all dash out into the night, leaving the fire burning and a few chairs overturned. The faithful old servant moves slowly through the room, adjusting chairs, and then the roar of airplanes is heard overhead as our boys fly off to engage the Hun. The servant takes a half-empty pint of beer from a table, lifts it to toast the heroes, and softly says: "Here's to You, sir!"

To its credit, "The Battle of Britain" eliminates this scene. But it catalogs all the others: The pilot staring moodily out the hotel window while his girl looks pensive on the bed; Churchill, represented by a cigar; the Kid who gets killed on his first mission; the brave little Red Cross nurse; the outcast officer whose early warnings are vindicated; the officious German general; the Nazi pilots drinking champagne while the harried British gulp tea and make repairs. And interminable shots of airplanes being shot down.

The airplanes are another sore point. Sure, Harry Saltzman spent millions to assemble and repair Spitfires and Hurricanes, and there was even a TV special about the authenticity of the movie. But you've got to USE airplanes; it isn't enough to own them. Some of the aerial photography is very good. We see dogfights actually filmed in the air and fought by real planes (instead of by models and visual effects).

But the aerial scenes are allowed to run forever and repeat themselves shamelessly, until we're sure we saw that same Heinkel dive into the sea (sorry -- the "drink") three times already. And the special effects aren't all that good for a movie that cost $12,000,000.

For example: We see hundreds of German bombers, row after row, thundering across the sky to bomb London. But every one of the bombers moves at precisely the same speed, There's no relative change in position, or correcting for altitude. Nobody even dips a wing. The Germans were good, but they weren't that good.

And so the scene looks fishy, and we figure out we're looking at models. No progress has been made since that notorious scene in "Mrs. Miniver" (1942), where the Dunkirk fleet churned across the English Channel at exactly the same speed (rowboats, gunboats, it didn't matter) and you realized they were being towed through a tank on the same string.

Inept as a lot of the effects are, they look good compared to the plot, or story, or whatever it is. Despite a lot of impressive speechmaking, no attempt is made to explain and clarify the Battle of Britain. Strategy is confined to pushing symbols around on maps. There are so many characters we never get involved. We can't even keep them straight. The writers never solved the problem of incorporating the top-heavy special effects into their thin little plot.

There's also evidence that the movie was butchered in the editing. Several scenes seem to lead into or out of other scenes that aren't there. For example, after Susannah York learns that Christopher Plummer has been shot down in flames, there's one of those obligatory scenes intended only to telegraph an outcome. She sees a badly burned man and is lectured on plastic surgery and all that. So we're set up for her dramatic confrontation with Plummer, which never comes. We never see either one of them again, in fact.

All we're left with is the offensive publicity campaign. It may be necessary to remind ourselves that the movie is not the battle itself. That TV documentary seemed to hint that Harry Saltzman, the producer, was only slightly less heroic than the guys who flew in the battle. They only died. He had to buy the planes.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Battle of Britain (1969)

151 minutes

Harry Andrews as Civil Servant

Trevor Howard as Air Vice Marshal Park

Kenneth Moore as Group Capt. Baker

Curt Jurgens as Baron von Richter

Michael Caine as Squadron Leader Canfield

Laurence Olivier as Sir Hugh Dowding

Screenplay by

• Wilfred Greatorex

Photographed by

• Freddie Young

From a screenplay by

• James Kenaway

Directed by

• Guy Hamilton

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Battle of Britain (1969)

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The Best WWII Air Epic: How Pilots From Both Sides Came Together to Make ‘Battle of Britain’

As usual, the odds were against the Royal Air Force. This time it was just one Heinkel bomber , but with an escort of 17 Messerschmitts , crossing the white cliffs of Dover before wheeling north toward the RAF base at Duxford.

Squadron Leader Ron Chadwick acquired them on ground-control radar, but could only send two fighters to intercept them. “We are expecting our foreign visitors in 10 minutes, Spitfire red leader,” he radioed. “Keep your eye open for them.”

“Spitfire red leader here. I have sighted our visitors.” The Spit pilot called his wingman, flying a Hawker Hurrican e: “Remember, they don’t know we’re here. Let’s go in and surprise them.”

Outnumbered almost 10-to-1, the two Brits swept down on the black-crossed intruders…and pulled up in front of them, wagging wings in greeting. The “ Luftwaffe ” leader’s response on landing at Duxford has gone unrecorded, but it was in Spanish, not German. This wasn’t 1940; it was May 1968, and the Spits and ’Schmitts were to spend the summer filming the greatest World War II air combat epic of all: Battle of Britain .

A Man and a PLan

Producer Ben Fisz had flown Hurricanes for the RAF and Polish air force in the war. He pitched his concept as a British The Longest Day —the 1962 20th Century Fox D-Day movie—but in the air. “This will be the biggest picture ever made in Great Britain, and possibly the biggest in the world,” enthused Fisz.

But the idea of a big-budget air war epic with no Yanks in it almost never got off the ground. American studio bosses thought the initial script “awfully English” until James Bond producer Harry Saltzman brought director Guy Hamilton ( Goldfinger ) aboard. “What we want to do is show what it really was like,” Hamilton said. “How it was to be involved in aerial combat. The kind of timing and sheer animal ability it took.”

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United Artists and virtually every big-name British actor of the day—among others, Sir Lau­rence Olivier, Michael Caine, Trevor Howard, Chris­topher Plummer and Robert Shaw—got on board (though not Sean Connery, then distancing himself from Saltzman and the Bond franchise). Securing the film’s other “stars” fell to former RAF Group Captain Thomas “Hamish” Mahaddie, vet­eran of Bomber Command’s Path­finder Force and a film industry warbird wrangler. “Within 10 days I had found out that there were over 100 Spitfires still left in the world,” he said. “They were not all airworthy, but they had possibilities.”

Most were late-war models, with four-blade props, wing cannons, teardrop canopies, pointed rudders and clipped wingtips. They were altered to Battle of Britain –era Mk. I standards except for their Merlin and Griffon engines (note six exhausts per side instead of the correct three). Stunt doubles were built from the ground up, several with motorcycle engines enabling them to taxi before being blown up.

Hurricane Search

Hurricanes, which outnumbered Spitfires during the battle, had not fared so well after the war. The Ministry of Defence could supply just three, only one of which could fly. Manufacturer Hawker Siddeley provided another, and one was flown in from Canada, disassembled, aboard an RAF C-130. The sixth, a rare Sea Hurricane Ib, could taxi but tended to overheat in the air.

Finding German warbirds was even harder. No Junkers Ju-87s were available at all; the Stukas in the movie are all radio-controlled flying scale models. Former Luftwaffe Lt. Gen. Adolf Galland , a battle veteran who had joined the film company as technical adviser, told Mahaddie: “Why don’t you try Spain? Their bomber force is composed of Heinkel bombers, though they use Rolls-Royce Merlin engines in them nowadays instead of Mercedes-Benz. Their fighter force used to use Messerschmitts, too—with Merlin engines also—but I hear they’re scrapping them. They might let you buy them.”

Flying to Tablada Airfield on the outskirts of Seville, Mahaddie found eight Hispano Aviación HA-1112 M1L Buchóns (essentially license-built, Merlin-powered Me-109Gs) being sold off by the Spanish air force, along with sufficient parts to build some 20 more. He bought the lot for $2,250 each. Representatives of the Confederate Air Force (today’s Commemorative Air Force) from Texas had purchased four Buchóns and agreed to loan them and the CAF’s Spitfires to the filmmakers on the condition they could fly them in the air combat scenes and play bit parts as Luftwaffe officers. Given aileron struts, squared wingtips and dummy guns fitted to the wings and engine cowls (but retaining the Merlin engines, hence their almost P-40ish nose scoops), the Buchóns were as close to battle-era Me-109E models as they could ever be.

Acquiring the Heinkels, however, was not a matter of money. Madrid’s CASA 2.111s—Merlin-powered Heinkel He-111s—were not for sale. Since the Spanish government was squabbling with Britain over Gibraltar, prospects of a bomber fleet for the movie were slim until Rolls-Royce threatened to withhold parts. Then Madrid agreed to lend the entire flotilla, with crews, free of charge, except for painting Luftwaffe camouflage and insignia and repainting in Spanish colors afterward.

Supporting Cast

Seville’s airfields stood in as Luftwaffe air bases when filming began in March 1968. As the Spanish countryside looked nothing like Kent, the bomber scenes were filmed out over the Atlantic. For a counterattacker, Fleet Air Arm veteran, aircraft restorer and replica builder Vivian Bellamy flew a Spitfire IX fitted with a long-range external tank via Bordeaux to Madrid. “I decided to show them what a Spitfire could do,” he recalled, “so when I took off I gave the aircraft 108 lbs of boost, and it literally shot into the sky, followed by a low flypast down the runway. As I was about to turn on course for Seville, the airfield control tower came on the radio and said ‘Would you do that again please.’”

A war surplus B-25, known as the “Psychedelic Monster” for its garish high-visibility paint scheme, served as camera plane. Aerial photographer John Jordan, who had lost a leg to a helicopter blade filming 1967’s You Only Live Twice , invented a “parashoot” to hang underneath a helicopter while aircraft whirled around him. (In 1970 he would die in a fall from a B-25 while filming Catch-22 .) Future airshow commentator John Blake of the Royal Aero Club served as dogfight choreographer. “We used to fly a racetrack pattern with the Heinkels,” he recalled, “and the Messerschmitts were in the standard wartime finger four formation, but considerably closed up so that they would fit into the camera frame. We also used to get the filming sequences all lined up ready, and then a fleet of Spanish fishing trawlers would come into shot below us and we would have to go around again.”  

And that was when they were able to fly at all. The rain in Spain, it seemed, fell mainly on the planes. One aerial shoot per day was par; two was lucky. Filming fell behind schedule. Costs began to mount, and tensions rose.

The Spanish insisted their Heinkels join a ceremonial NATO flypast, which meant, on top of time lost, stripping and then replacing their Luftwaffe markings at an estimated cost of £1,000 per aircraft. Director Hamilton put up such a fuss that it was agreed to leave the bombers in Nazi warpaint, which surely garnered double-takes from ex-Allied brass at the event. And with only a limited number of concrete dummy bombs made, their bomb-run scene had to be done in one take. According to Blake, “On the allotted bomb-dropping day we flew south, instead of flying our usual westerly direction. The Heinkels set off and actually headed in the direction of Gibraltar. At that time General [Francisco] Franco was having one of his tantrums about the British and Gibraltar, and I did actually wonder whether the Spanish pilots were going to drop the concrete bombs on Gibraltar! Thankfully they didn’t and the scenes were shot successfully.”

Veteran Pilots, Old grudges

Galland had flown with the Luftwaffe Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War , but rejected the whole premise of a Battle of Britain. “We made a number of attacks against England between July and September,” he said. “Then we discovered that we were not achieving the desired effect, and so we retired.” But Hamilton, who had lived through the Blitz , served in the Royal Navy and survived the infamous decimation of Convoy PQ-17 by Luftwaffe bombers and U-boats, openly detested Germans. He ultimately threw Galland off the set.

English battle veterans had been named technical advisers too: Group Captains Douglas Bader and Peter Townsend, Wing Cmdr. Robert Stanford Tuck and Squadron Leaders James “Gin­ger” Lacey and Bill Foxley, who had suffered terrible burns in a 1944 Vickers Wellington crash. Although from quite different generations, the actors gained new respect for the WWII pilots. “I can remember listening in Canada, night after night, to Edward R. Murrow on the radio describing the progress of the battle,” Christopher Plummer said. “Now to meet these guys like Bader and Lacey and Townsend is really something.”

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The pilots were less impressed by the film stars. Shaw, taxiing a Spitfire, trod a little too hard on the brakes and stood it on its nose. And Lacey complained: “I’m having the devil’s time getting the actors to be authentic. I can’t get them to cut their hair. In those days, we were all close cropped, and these chaps look like bloody Beatles. They all say they dasn’t cut their hair; they’ll ruin their image.”

The pilots had cemented their image in the summer of 1940 and didn’t concern themselves now. Lacey even brushed off being awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal with Bar by no less than King George VI: “The king asked me what I’d got the medal for. I said I’d forgotten. Well then, he said, what about the bar? Well, I’d forgotten that too. He must have thought I’d come to pick up the medal for a pal of mine.”

Nor did they have much good to say about their old enemies turned Cold War allies. “It was quite a shock visiting Duxford air base today,” Bader told reporters. “That was my base during the war. I went out there today and saw all those Kraut airplanes, and I thought, what’s going on?”

  “Well,” Lacey told him, “if it hadn’t been for the Battle of Britain they might really have been there.”

For the London bombing scene the studio bought an abandoned tea warehouse and demolished it, along with a derelict section of the city waterfront that had actually been heavily bombed in 1940 and, a generation later, condemned by the authorities. The hangar that gets blown up in the attack on Duxford really was a hangar at Duxford, and really was blown up, though it took two tries.

Rotten LUck

Unfortunately the bad weather followed the production to England, with similar effect on the flying schedule. “I was contracted for six weeks,” said CAF founder Wilson “Connie” Edwards, “and 11 months later I was still getting shot down—128 times, and that doesn’t count the practice runs. I could tell right quick I wasn’t gonna win the war.” (Edwards didn’t complain too loudly. In lieu of payment, he received 16 of the Buchóns , including a rare two-seat trainer. He traded two of them back for a Spitfire Mk. IX, and kept the rest at his ranch in Big Spring, Texas, until selling the last of them off in 2014.

Grounded by rain and forbidden to hit the pubs, the battle veterans loitered around the airfields and nursed old wounds. “I loathe those crooked swastikas,” Bader told reporters. “…When you saw one of them go up in smoke one was delighted and one never thought about anyone being inside them.” Asked for the moral of the movie story, he said, “Surely the lesson is that one forgives but that one doesn’t forget. It’s as simple as that.”  

Bader had lost both legs in an aircraft crash, but famously hadn’t let that stop him from flying fighters. He demonstrated for reporters how a double amputee gets in and out of a Spitfire and then, on request, did the same in a Spanish Messerschmitt, but came away wiping his hands. “You know, even if I was blind, I’d know I’d been in a bloody Kraut kite,” he said. “You can tell by their smell!”

That Buchón had likely never seen Germany. Robert Shaw said aghast, “I never knew people talked like that.”

Galland, despite losing two younger brothers—also fighter aces—in the war, had personally seen to Bader’s good treatment after his capture, but received little thanks for it and now harbored something of a grudge. Yet as filming wound down Galland and Stanford Tuck took the tandem-seat 109 up for a flight together, and Stanford Tuck later became godfather to Galland’s son.

Bad blood still simmered, however, between adherents of Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding and former No. 11 Group commander Keith Park on one side, and Bader and former 12 Group commander, the late Air Vice Marshal (later Air Chief Marshal Sir) Trafford Leigh-Mallory on the other. In the battle, Leigh-Mallory’s “Big Wing” strategy, depending on who tells the story, either failed to support Park’s 11 Group or was not supported by it. “We are going to break a few eggs,” director Hamilton had promised, “by showing for the first time some of the smelly things that were going on down below, in the Air Ministry, while the battle was being fought in the air.”

Park, in 1968 a city councilor in Auckland, New Zea­land, had kept tabs on the production and disparaged it in the Kiwi press, especially when Rex Harrison, who had actually been one of his junior officers in 1940, withdrew from playing him. “There was a dirty little intrigue going on behind the scenes among Air Ministry staff and the group immediately to the rear of No. 11,” Park told reporters. “As a result of this intrigue, just after the Battle of Britain was won, the Air Ministry sacked Dow­ding, and I was sent off to a training command.”

Pilots had taken sides in 1940 and clung to them in 1968. To the consternation of Stanford Tuck, Lacey called Leigh-Mallory “a clot.” Matters came to a head when Dowding himself—then 86, wheelchair-bound, nearly blind and still bitter—visited the Battle of Britain set. He was rolled in to view rushes of the scene where Olivier, playing him, tells a stuffy air minister that Britain’s back is to the wall: “Our young men will have to shoot down their young men at the rate of four to one.” When the lights came up, production paused while the famously stoic air chief marshal wept.

Dowding was seen to coach Trevor Howard, playing Park, and afterward wrote his former group leader, “I hope I can relieve you of any apprehensions as to the treatment you will receive at the hands of the film company.” Battle of Britain doesn’t try to resolve the Big Wing controversy, but simply gives Dowding what he did not get during the war: credit for victory. “If it hadn’t been for him, old boy,” Bader admitted to Shaw, “we might be digging salt out of a Silesian salt mine,” and on second thought, “…I’d probably be dead, but your generation would.”

Crash and Burn

That fact flew over the heads of audiences and reviewers. “The aerial scenes are allowed to run forever and repeat themselves shamelessly, until we’re sure we saw that same Heinkel dive into the sea (sorry—the ‘drink’) three times already,” opined film critic Roger Ebert, clearly no aviation buff. After all the expense—and going up against late-’60s antiwar sentiment and cynicism— Battle of Britain not only failed to turn a profit, but lost $10 million globally.  

Since then, however, video sales have more than made up the difference, and it remains a cult favorite. A long-running Hollywood rumor has it that 20th Century Fox has signed director Sir Ridley Scott, who describes the subject as a passion of his, for a new movie on the battle. As many of the original’s warbirds are still flying, and so many more are being restored that there are more Spitfires and Hurricanes available now than in 1968, using real planes might be cheaper than CGI. And a whole new generation might hear those same Merlins roar again. ✯

— Frequent contributor Don Hollway wrote about making The Blue Max in our July 2015 issue. For further reading, he recommends: Battle of Britain: The Making of a Film , by Leonard Mosley, and Battle of Britain: The Movie , by Robert J. Rudhall.

You can convert your own HA-1112 M1L Buchón into a “Movie Messerschmitt,” just click here .

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Battle of Britain Reviews

This 1969 big-budget extravaganza is noted for its realistic recreations of aerial WWII dogfights.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 21, 2019

Succeeds in giving the general impression of a pivotal historical moment, and excels in crafting some of the most astonishing aerial-warfare sequences ever put on film. [Blu-Ray]

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 1, 2008

An all-star ensemble cast consisting of the who's who of British films can't save the war epic from being a bore.

Full Review | Original Score: C | May 14, 2008

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 15, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 17, 2005

There are so many characters we never get involved. We can't even keep them straight. The writers never solved the problem of incorporating the top-heavy special effects into their thin little plot.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Oct 23, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 25, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 10, 2003

Surprisingly flat considering the talent involved.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 24, 2003

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Battle of britain.

1969 Directed by Guy Hamilton

In 1940, the Royal Air Force fights a desperate battle against the might of the Luftwaffe for control of the skies over Britain, thus preventing the Nazi invasion of Britain.

Michael Caine Trevor Howard Harry Andrews Curd Jürgens Ian McShane Laurence Olivier Christopher Plummer Kenneth More Nigel Patrick Michael Redgrave Ralph Richardson Robert Shaw Patrick Wymark Susannah York Michael Bates Robert Flemyng Edward Fox W.G. Foxley Barry Foster James Cosmo Jack Gwillim Wilfried von Aacken Karl-Otto Alberty Helmut Kircher Paul Neuhaus Dietrich Frauboes Malte Petzel Peter Hager Hein Riess Show All… Rolf Stiefel Manfred Reddemann Alexander Allerson Alf Jungermann Jean Wladon David Griffin Eric Dodson Kate Binchy Sarah Lawson Isla Blair André Maranne Nikki Van der Zyl John Comer Harry Fielder Richard Morant Christopher Morris John Savident Nick Tate David McKail

Director Director

Guy Hamilton

Producers Producers

Benjamin Fisz Harry Saltzman Claude Hudson Sydney Streeter Agustín Pastor Bernard Williams

Writers Writers

Wilfred Greatorex James Kennaway

Original Writers Original Writers

Derek Dempster Derek Wood

Casting Casting

Maude Spector Carl Duering

Editor Editor

Cinematography cinematography.

Freddie Young

Assistant Director Asst. Director

Derek Cracknell

Additional Directing Add. Directing

David Bracknell

Additional Photography Add. Photography

Robert Huke

Art Direction Art Direction

Bert Davey William Hutchinson Jack Maxsted Gil Parrondo Maurice Carter

Special Effects Special Effects

Ray Caple Cliff Richardson Wally Veevers Glen Robinson

Visual Effects Visual Effects

Alan Quested

Title Design Title Design

Maurice Binder

Composer Composer

Ron Goodwin

Sound Sound

Gordon Everett Gordon K. McCallum Teddy Mason Jim Shields

Makeup Makeup

Eric Allwright George Frost

Hairstyling Hairstyling

A. G. Scott

Spitfire Productions United Artists

Primary Language

Spoken languages.

German French Polish English

Releases by Date

15 sep 1969, 17 sep 1969, 22 sep 1969, 17 nov 1969, 20 nov 1969, 15 dec 1969, 16 dec 1969, 01 jan 1992, czechoslovakia, 01 may 2004, 03 nov 2004, 03 may 2007, 02 jun 2014, 18 jan 2003, releases by country.

• Theatrical PG
• Theatrical 12
• Theatrical TP
• Theatrical 16

Netherlands

• TV 12 V 8
• Physical 12 DVD
• Physical 12 Blu ray
• Theatrical M/12
• Theatrical 15 Biograf Riviera, Stockholm
• Physical DVD
• Theatrical G

132 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by RhodesMovie ★★★ 2

No CGI (OK some inevitable cockpit bluescreens and model shots) and actual flying in Spitfires and Hurricanes. Rousing and visually authentic with an ensemble cast where almost every face belongs to someone who pops up everywhere. Maybe that means it's spread thinly and there are some character deficiencies, but I believe the film is now enjoyed as a broad stroke about the overall accomplishment and frankly, these kind of films suffer badly from long character backstory and exposition. I like that this film dives straight in.

Guy Hamilton directs. By 1969 he's proven himself up to the challenge of capturing sprawling excitement and adventure with his other 'Best ot British' film, 1964's Goldfinger no less. Battle of Britain feels like…

Review by IronWatcher ★★★½

Watched on Blu-Ray (borrowed)

There are films that want to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, films for genre lovers and films that live their niche existence like a sheet of paper between two encyclopedias in a well-assorted video library.

One of the latter is definitely "Battle of Britain". Half a century has passed since this work of art, which is likely to trigger euphoria in every person interested in contemporary, military or film history.

Everyone knows this premise from the history books; after the battle for France was fought after only a few days and the Royal Air Force, which hastened to help its French allies, has also rushily fled, the brawny British prime minister Churchill declared…

Review by DallasFrance ★★★★

An extended scene of Spitfire planes fending off an overwhelming German assault is going to glorify war. It’s impossible not to. To its credit,  The Battle of Britain  balances its aesthetic marvels with human moments depicting the grave costs of war. Despite Britain’s surprising defense, director Guy Hamilton smartly shows both sides looking stunned and traumatized.

In a British post-battle scene, a chalk board has the names of dead British pilots crossed off the “readiness” list. The camera then pans across the pilots, and everyone from the greenest soldier to the most arrogant star sits exhausted but on edge. After a miracle of a day, the reality is that they still lost many soldiers, and the next raid could come at any moment.

Review by pirateneckbeard ★★★★

This was actually a really good movie. Sorry to sound so surprised but sometimes war movies are exhausting in ways but I do enjoy a British war drama. I love it when a film especially a war one focuses in on one moment of it and really extrapolates on the details as they were and giving you a moment in time. The air battles looked really good really pulling you in for the time they were made and what a great cast. Not a lot of focus on one but many individuals but that didn't hinder nor confuse the story. Oh and what a great cast they got. I like that they also stayed away from having the use of…

Review by Demdike ★★★★

"Never was so much owed by so many to so few"

Review by Adam L ★★★★

Following Britain's strategic withdrawal from France, the RAF must hold the English coastline against German bombing raids. If the Nazis destroy Britain's air power it will open the country to a ground invasion by Hitler's forces.

Battle of Britain is a grand, old-fashioned war epic. There's a bit of humor, like the stuffy officer who lectures Susannah York about the women under her command not using the men's trenches during German bombing raids and then immediately takes cover with her and a group of WAAFs in a trench when the Jerries fly in dropping bombs. But mostly it's a stirring and patriotic film about bravery and sacrifice.

The cast is packed with big names, but none of them is a…

Review by C.A. DeStefanis ★★★½

A solid WWII jam about the British aerial defense of their homeland from Nazi air assaults in 1940. A great British who's who cast pepper a film that I really enjoyed - certainly more than the majority of reviews I've read.

The film, based upon my research, was largely historically accurate, which I always like, and is told in a very straight forward, matter of fact fashion that never relies on manipulative emotional beats or sentimentality. Also pluses in my opinion.

I've never heard this film mentioned in regard to Star Wars, but I cannot imagine that this film didn't have some influence on George Lucas. The aerial footage and the, at times, rudimentary effects feel like they are on…

Review by Neill Shaughness ★★★

Perhaps a bit too dry. I appreciate that the film never comes across as pompous, but a touch of sentimentality might have gone a long way here. The aerial combat feels a bit sluggish (why is it so hard to make dogfights work cinematically?), but there are some great subtle moments for the characters, especially for Susannah York. Fun film for appreciating multiple generations of great British actors on screen together.

Review by Fint ★★★★ 2

A film like Battle of Britain will never be made again. What is exceptional about it is the sheer volume of aircraft utilised, the extensive flying sequences being a cunningly edited match of genuine stunt work with adroit model work. These days it would be prohibitively expensive to use so many breathing pilots in so many historical planes, so the perfect, impenetrable sheen of CGI would envelop the film and allow us to see anything the filmmakers could imagine. But the tang of reality is something else. I'm neither a military nostalgist nor a hardware geek but I found the bulk of Guy Hamilton's movie gripping and persuasive.

A barrage of star names are wheeled on, hit their marks, deliver…

Review by Daniel Shillito ★★★★

What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin.

They were playing for time and it's run out. I've always felt that Battle of Britain's success lies with the fact it wants to portray the event and people as they were, no unnecessary melodrama, no over-elaborate characterisations, just people doing their duties and honestly it makes the film all the better for it.

May 1940. The German army has overrun France and the British Royal Air Force is evacuating its aircraft and pilots. A squadron of Hawker Hurricanes is quickly refuelled and flown off ahead of the advancing Germans. Back in Britain, Air Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding recommends to Prime Minister…

Review by Luke Grima ★★★★

The aerial fighting scenes elevates the thin background story during one of Britain's finest hours.

Review by RKO_Chester ★★★

If curious to see which WW2-themed movies RKO Chester actually likes See my LIST here

A star-studded cast that is mostly wasted by not giving most of these stars any good dialogue or anything to do.

Great beginning to this film and the best direction I think may have been done for the three and a half minute credit roll showing German army units.

The STAR power then begins to make appearances in this epic-style film, but such was often underutilized: the lifeless romance of Christopher Plummer and Susannah York add almost nothing to this story. Curd Jürgens and Ralph Richardson are in this for 2 minutes. Trevor Howard was given very simple dialogue as he paced back and forth,…

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Battle Of Britain Review

15 Sep 1969

151 minutes

Battle Of Britain

"Never, in the field of human conflict, was so much owed by so many to so few . . ." Churchill may have bagged the best lines, but in 1940 it was the RAF that grabbed the glory. The battle was over just 29 years when this film was released.

Now, 29 years later still, it begins to look like ancient history with stunning aerial sequences, filmed from the cockpits of droning Heinkel bombers and dogfighting Spitfires. Purists will note, most of the latter are late models and complain there are nowhere near enough Hurricanes, but the Luftwaffe hardware is there in strength, as it was until a bunch of under-trained, over-worked and outnumbered RAF and allies beat the odds and the threat of invasion with tally-ho heroism and much stiff upper lippery.

The planes took up most of Bond producer Harry Saltzman's budget but he also assembled such a large all-star cast that at times all of "the few" seem to pass before the camera. Indeed, there are so many familiar faces that even Michael Caine gets shot down, to the dismay of his faithful black dog. The hound is marginally more credible than the Susannah "Don't you yell at me, Mr. Warwick" York subplot and some of the music grates, but Olivier is on fine form as Air Chief Marshall Dowding outwitting Curt Jurgens' Baron Von Richter.

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Movie Review

Battle of britain.

United Kingdom Release Date: 09-15-1969

Directed by: Guy Hamilton

Starring ▸ ▾

• Harry Andrews ,  as
• Senior Civil Servant
• Michael Caine ,  as
• Squadron Leader Canfield
• Trevor Howard ,  as
• Air Vice Marshal Keith Park
• Curd Jurgens ,  as
• Baron von Richter
• Ian McShane ,  as
• Sgt. Pilot Andy
• Kenneth More ,  as
• Group Capt. Baker
• Laurence Olivier ,  as
• Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding
• Nigel Patrick ,  as
• Group Capt. Hope
• Christopher Plummer ,  as
• Squadron Leader Colin Harvey
• Michael Redgrave ,  as
• Air Vice Marshal Evill
• Ralph Richardson ,  as
• Sir David Kelly
• Robert Shaw ,  as
• Squadron Leader Skipper
• Patrick Wymark ,  as
• Air Vice Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory
• Susannah York as
• Section Officer Maggie Harvey

Michael Caine in Battle of Britain .

By 1969 the gung ho, patriotic war movie was heading out of fashion. M*A*S*H* and Catch 22 , two war movies more in tune with the era of Vietnam war protests, would be released within a year of this one and from then on nearly all war movies would come with a sense of irony attached. Battle of Britain however, is an old school World War II movie featuring a large cast of recognizable stars that wears its patriotism proudly on its sleeve.

For those who don't know (and I rather cynically suspect that number is much higher than it used to be), following the fall of France and before the United States and the Soviet Union entered the war, Great Britain stood virtually alone against Nazi Germany. The Battle of Britain, so named by Churchill who proclaimed following the evacuation of Dunkirk that “The Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin.”, was fought in the air between the German Luftwaffe and the Royal Air Force. Hitler's aim was to soften up Britain to the point where she either negotiated some form of surrender or weaken her to the point where an invasion, the so-called “Operation Sea Lion”, would be possible. The plot of this movie tells the story of that summer and autumn in 1940 when the balance of the war hung in the air over England.

The cast is filled with British stars and recognizable character actors. Laurence Olivier plays Air Marshal Hugh Dowding, the commander of Fighter Command. Ralph Richardson is the British ambassador to Switzerland. Michael Caine, Christopher Plummer and Robert Shaw all play Squadron Leaders. Those are some of the biggest names in the cast, but you'll know the faces, if not all the names, of most of the rest of the cast. Not to give away any spoilers, but be warned that being a famous face is no guarantee for survival until the end of the movie.

As you'd probably expect, much of the movie takes place in the air. There are plenty of dogfights and aerial battles. A large portion of the budget went into filming these scenes and it shows. So many airplanes were used for the filming that at one point it was estimated that they were operating the 35th largest air force in the world. Nowadays they'd make do with CGI planes, but here they are the real thing.

So much money was spent on the planes and air battles that it's obvious the producers wanted to get their money's worth, which brings up the only complaint that I have about the movie. While the dogfights are well filmed and tense, there are so many of them that eventually they start to run together and seem awfully similar. The action is exciting, but it's the personalities of the people involved that make the story interesting and relatable. I wish that more time could have been spent with some of the characters, particularly given the terrific cast involved.

Like the cast, the production team was also British. Harry Saltzman, one half of the James Bond producing team, produced the film and he brought along several of his team from the Bond films. Guy Hamilton who directed 4 Bonds, including Goldfinger , directs this movie as well.

Of the millions of Allied casualties that resulted from World War II, less than one thousand of them died during the Battle of Britain. And yet that small band of chaps in their Spitfires and Hurricanes helped to alter the course of the war. This movie is a fitting tribute to them. As Winston Churchill so eloquently put it, “Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.”

Susannah York and Christopher Plummer in Battle of Britain

As Scott wrote, Battle of Britain is an old fashion war film. It is told in a manner once popular in war films, where we are shown the participants on both sides of the conflict. As in The Longest Day (1962), we see the British talking, laughing and belly aching about their situations and then the Germans doing pretty much the same. It provides us with a view of the men from both sides and reminds us that they are merely pawns in a deadly game that their politicians are playing.

For me that is one of the film's highlights. Early on the German pilots are shown as loud and arrogant. They yuck it up over drinks like a bunch of fraternity boys on vacation.

The British, on the other hand, seem rightfully on edge, and are uncomfortable displaying any type of emotion. When the British man, whose job is to activate the air raid siren, gets word from look outs of the approaching German planes, he reacts without urgency. He gently puts down the phone and casually walks over to the siren.

When Christopher Plummer meets with his wife, Susannah York, in a pub, you can tell he wants to start a row about her joining the military but he refrains. These people are so repressed that her way of telling him she wants sex is by informing him that she has made hotel reservations, wink wink nudge nudge. His reaction is so small that he barely seems interested. However, after the Germans attack, they both find their voice.

After seeing wounded and dead, York nervously attempts to light her cigarette and gets yelled at because of broken gas pipes in the area, even though there are plenty of different fires burning all around her. She yells back and then starts giving orders. After landing from an aerial fight, Plummer snaps at a rookie pilot, “Never let me catch you doing a victory roll over my airfield again. Understood?”

To me, the theme of this film is England reaching down into its pants and finding it has balls. Note the scene early on where the British suit stands up to the German suit. The British man is defiant but clearly shaking in his shoes.

Whenever we have a scene featuring the Germans we have classical music playing and everything looks new and powerful. The Germans seem particularly threatening and pretty damn cool looking in their dark uniforms. The Nazis are extremely confidant throughout most of the film but lose a bit of their swagger by the end. They may have power on their side but it is no match for the British stiff upper lip.

Scott mentioned the cast, and it is a bit interesting in that my teenage sons know some of them from superhero films. They both know Michael Caine as Alfred from Christopher Nolan’s Batman films. My youngest is a huge Superman fan and did not recognize his mother from the Christopher Reeves movie.

Battle of Britain is a good film for the story it tells but it is not a very compelling one. It should have told the story of the Battle of Britain from a single perspective, or at the most from Plummer’s and York’s. That way we could have felt a greater emotional connection to the two of them surviving the war, seeing the Nazi defeat and moving to the country to have scads of emotionally repressed snotty sounding British children.

Trevor Howard and Laurence Olivier in Battle of Britain .

While a solid production that boasts some pretty spectacular aerial shots featuring hundreds of WWII aircraft flying over those famous White Cliffs of Dover, and a fairly accurate historical representation of the eponymous battle, this film is a bit dry for my tastes. It never really moved me emotionally or allowed me to feel engaged with the characters as much as I had hoped. With typical British reserve it seems more documentary than movie.

With one exception the big name stars are wasted in parts that nearly anyone else could have played. Most of them get only a handful of lines. Michael Caine and Christopher Plummer (both of whom are still acting today in their 80s) give solid turns but neither one gets a chance to really stand out in this large ensemble cast. Trevor Howard makes good use of his distinguished speaking voice but looks a bit long in the tooth for the role of an active soldier. In fact a double was used in the scene where he first visits Squadron Leader Harvey (Plummer) and jumps out of the Hurricane.

The exception being Sir Laurence Olivier as Sir Hugh Dowding (he was visited on the set by the real Lord Dowding, at the time an old man confined to a wheelchair). Olivier not only possessed the required gravitas for the role but he also brings a much needed sense of drama to the proceedings. He gets the most memorable spoken line when he's on the phone discussing casualty figures that have been publicly disputed by the Germans. At one point he clears his throat and says in an implacable voice, “I'm not very interested in propaganda. If we're right, they'll give up. If we are wrong, they'll be in London in a week!”

History tells us the Germans did give up their plans for Operation Sea Lion, although they did continue their bombing “Blitz” of London and other British cities until May of 1941. Some historians have pointed out that Britain's superior navy would have made an attack by sea across the English Channel a risky venture for the Germans. At any rate the men and women to whom this movie pays tribute saved thousands of Allied lives as well as the lives of many innocent British civilians with their heroic actions during those fateful months of August and September, 1940.

Photos © Copyright Sony Pictures (1969)

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The Battle for The Battle of Britain

Michael Caine (Self - Host) Winston Churchill (Self - prime minister of the United Kingdom) Harry Saltzman (Self) Benjamin Fisz (Self - WWII fighter pilot) Guy Hamilton (Self) Ralph Richardson (Self) Curd Jürgens (Self) Robert Shaw (Self) Trevor Howard (Self) Michael Redgrave (Self)

Paul Annett, Christopher Doll

From July 10 to October 31, 1940, England stood alone against Hitler'S Germany. The Battle of Britain does an excellent depiction of the first battle In history fought totally as an air war prior to U.S. entry into WWII.

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Battle of Britain (1969) Directed by Guy Hamilton

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Battle of Britain (1969)

But the essential arithmetic is that our young men will have to shoot down their young men at the rate of four to one, if were to keep pace at all.

Rating: 6/10

Sit back, think of Britain, and try to ignore the fact that it’s not half as good as it should be.

Running Time: 151 minutes

US Certificate: PG UK Certificate: PG

Chocks away, tally ho, no-sex-please and off into the wild blue yonder we bally well go! It’s 1940, it’s World War II, and Gerry can do his ruthlessly-efficient worst for all we care – because this is Blighty, and neither we nor our large moustaches are going anywhere!

What a film ‘Battle of Britain’ should be. It is, after all, based on one of Britain’s best war stories. It’s about the Luftwaffe arriving in their thousands, and the RAF beating them back (I hope I’m not giving away the ending for anyone!) through sheer spirit, determination and stiff-upper-lippedness. Its cast list reads like a veritable British dream team, from Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier to Christopher Plummer and Robert Shaw. Even the mahogany-faced Ian “Lovejoy” McShane is in there, along with Sir Ralph Richardson, and big John Savident, better known as ‘Coronation Street’s Fred Elliott (I say Fred Elliott).

Even better, it’s now been given the special edition treatment, and comes at us all guns blazing with commentaries, documentaries, featurettes, and Caine strolling through 1960s London telling us things that not a lot of people know.

Unfortunately, the whole thing is a bit of a let-down. As already mentioned, there’s a fantastic cast, but there’s just so bloody many of them that it’s all too easy to lose track of who’s doing what and where they’re all going – and, even if you’re able to keep up with it all, none of them get enough screen time to really make them interesting. When you consider the film runs at well over two hours – more than enough time to work in a bit of character development – it’s a flaw that there’s really no excuse for.

What saves it from becoming an extremely expensive flop is the all-out impressiveness of the mid-air battle scenes. Sure, it was made way back in 1969, but the sheer splendour of seeing those old Spitfires tossing and turning in the skies hasn’t been matched in the years since. It’s also extremely brightly-coloured and glossy-looking for a piece of work that’s now more than 30 years old, and that – combined with the historical subject matter – means it hasn’t dated in the slightest. It really is quite incredible to see a film this old looking quite so fresh.

By far and away the best thing about it though is William Walton’s rousing score, not used on the original version of the film but now available as an accompaniment for the first time thanks to the wonders of DVD. It’s almost enough to have you standing saluting for the full two-and-a-half-hours. Almost.

It's Got: John Savident – better or known as ‘Coronation Street’s Fred Elliott (I say Fred Elliott).

It Needs: For us all to thank our lucky stars the battle wasn’t settled by penalty shoot-out.

DVD Extras Two behind-the-scenes featurettes, a couple of historical documentaries, an animated photo gallery, audio commentary with director Guy Hamilton and his crew, and a couple of trailers. DVD Extras Rating:  6/10

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Battle Over Britain review – Spitfires duke it out in derring-do war drama

A squadron of fighter pilots is depicted over 24 hours in 1940 in Callum Burn’s stripped-down-to-the-rivets tale

T his 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.

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Tuesday 6 October 2020

Movie review: battle of britain (1969).

A World War Two historical drama, Battle Of Britain recreates epic dogfights and bombing raids, but fails to generate any sense of narrative engagement.

Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe Hermann Göring (Hein Riess) is confident an air force bombing campaign can quickly gain command of the skies. But the British rally, aided by the superior maneuverability of the Spitfire compared to the German Messerschmitt Bf 109. In months of aerial combat including the bombing of cities, both sides endure heavy losses.

A Harry Saltzman production directed by Guy Hamilton, Battle Of Britain features numerous sequences of painstakingly staged combat in the skies. Most of the budget was invested in authentic scenes of Spitfires intercepting German bombers and engaging with Messeschmitts, as the Luftwaffe attempts to knock out radar installations and airfields before targeting London in retaliation for the British bombing of Berlin. In return the Royal Air Force musters every available fighter plane and pilot to mount a spirited defence, taking advantage of German hubris and strategic mistakes to inflict heavy losses on the attackers and Göring's pride.

And outside the combat scenes,  Battle Of Britain  stutters and stalls. Despite an overlong running time of 132 minutes, the strategic, tactical and personal contexts are either sketched at rudimentary levels or missing altogether. The on-the-ground interludes are haphazardly assembled with no regard for flow. In a case of quantity over quality, a cast featuring a who's who of British acting talent fails to create a single memorable character or worthwhile storyline. Michael Caine , Robert Shaw , Christopher Plummer , Trevor Howard , Harry Andrews, Michael Redgrave, Patrick Wymark and Ralph Richardson (among many others) get a few glib lines each in poorly defined roles as airmen, squadron leaders or commanders, all to no effect. And as pilots masked and belted into their cramped cockpits, all the actors are essentially undifferentiated.

Some of the attempts to create human stories are laughably inept, including a clunky marital tiff between Plummer and Susannah York. Ian McShane receives what should have been the one good moment involving family sacrifice, but his chapter drops in and out with no meaningful setup or follow-through, losing all impact.

2 comments:

Well, thats war. People are essentially undifferentiated then. Personal sacrifices doesnt matter. In a war, there is no soul or heart. And this movie shows exactly that.

That's a good way to look at it. But the absence of both human engagement and strategic context make for a poor cinematic experience.

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Battle of Britain

By: History.com Editors

Updated: November 15, 2022 | Original: November 9, 2009

The Battle of Britain in World War II was between Britain’s Royal Air Force ( RAF ) and the Luftwaffe , Nazi Germany’s air force, and was the first battle in history fought solely in the air. From July 10 through October 31, 1940, pilots and support crews on both sides took to the skies and battled for control of airspace over Great Britain, Germany and the English Channel. The powerful, combat-experienced Luftwaffe hoped to conquer Britain easily, but the RAF proved a formidable enemy.

WATCH: World War II Documentaries on HISTORY Vault 

Herman Göring and the Luftwaffe

After World War I , the Treaty of Versailles forbade Germany to have an air force. With the help of the Soviet Union , however, Germany secretly defied the treaty and trained air force pilots and support staff on combat planes.

When Adolf Hitler and his Third Reich came to power, Nazi Germany began rebuilding their air force. He officially created the Luftwaffe in February 1935, placing former World War I fighter pilot and political ally Hermann Göring in charge.

WATCH VIDEO: Winston S. Churchill 

Operation Sea Lion

By the start of World War II in 1939, the Luftwaffe was the strongest and best-trained air force in the world. They played a crucial role in Germany’s swift, methodical and highly effective blitzkrieg invasion of much of Western Europe, including Poland, Holland, Belgium and France.

After France fell to Germany on June 22, 1940, Hitler set his sights on the Soviet Union but still had to contend with Great Britain. He planned a massive invasion by land and sea, code named Operation Sea Lion, but knew he needed to defeat the RAF first.

Hitler hoped his Luftwaffe and its fierce reputation would intimidate Britain enough that they would surrender peacefully, and even dangled the prospect of a peace treaty . However, he underestimated the resolve of Britain’s people, its military and its combative new prime minister, Winston Churchill , who rejected the offer outright.

Churchill believed Hitler and the evils of Nazism had to be abolished no matter what. He knew that the RAF was Britain’s main defense against German troops crossing the English Channel.

Did you know? The battle received its name from a speech Winston Churchill delivered to the British House of Commons on June 18, 1940, in which he stated, "the Battle of France is over. I expect the Battle of Britain is about to begin."

Churchill's "Finest Hour" Speech

Days before France’s surrender, Churchill gave his famous “ Finest Hour ” speech to the House of Commons, making it clear he had no intention of capitulating to Hitler, although some members of Parliament hoped to negotiate peace.

In his speech, Churchill said, "the Battle of France is over. I expect the Battle of Britain is about to begin." He spoke of his certainty that the Luftwaffe would attack Britain hard, but also his confidence that the RAF, commanded by Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding, would hold their own and be victorious.

Churchill knew failure was not an option, and his powerful speech boosted the morale and patriotism of the British people, its military and Parliament.

READ MORE: 10 Things You May Not Know About Winston Churchill

Hawker Hurricane, Supermarine Spitfire, Messerschmitt BF-109

Hitler and many of his generals were unprepared to invade Britain. Göring, however, was confident his Luftwaffe would quickly destroy the RAF with his German bombers and prevent, or at least postpone, the need for a full-scale invasion; Hitler gave him the go-ahead to prove it.

On July 10, 1940, the Luftwaffe attacked Britain, performing reconnaissance missions and targeting coastal defenses, ports and radar stations. Their efforts, however, did little damage to the RAF.

In mid-August, using mostly single-engine Messerschmitt BF-109 combat planes, the Luftwaffe began attacking Britain’s airfields, air fighter production sites and targeting RAF Supermarine Spitfires and Hawker Hurricanes in the air.

Blitz Begins

Despite being outnumbered, the RAF retaliated by bombing Berlin. Enraged, Hitler and Göring changed tactics and ordered a bombing campaign known as “ the Blitz ” against London, Liverpool, Coventry and other major cities, hoping to decimate the morale of the British people. To ensure massive casualties and to avoid aerial dogfights between the RAF and the Luftwaffe, German bombing was carried out at night.

On September 15, the Luftwaffe began two massive raids on London, eager to force the British to the negotiating table, but they could not defeat the RAF or gain control of British airspace. The Luftwaffe was by then stretched too thin, poorly organized and unable to keep up with the demand for new fighter planes or overcome the RAF’s superior technology.

Who Won the Battle of Britain?

By the end of October 1940, Hitler called off his planned invasion of Britain and the Battle of Britain ended. Both sides suffered enormous loss of life and aircraft. Still, Britain weakened the Luftwaffe and prevented Germany from achieving air superiority. It was the first major defeat of the war for Hitler.

Although Britain stood alone against Germany after the fall of France, nearly a quarter of the RAF pilots who participated in the Battle of Britain were from other countries including Poland, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, France, the United States and South Africa.

Why Did the British Win the Battle of Britain?

The British won the Battle of Britain due to a confluence of factors. They were defending their home territory, so were more motivated to succeed, and also knew the local geography better than the invaders.

Another major factor was the Dowding System, named after Sir Hugh Dowding, Commander in Chief of the RAF Fighting Command. The Dowding System’s pioneering use of radar (which could warn the RAF of enemy attacks), aircraft and ground defense gave Great Britain a competitive advantage.

Significance of the Battle of Britain

The Battle of Britain was a turning point in World War II; if the RAF had not held off the Luftwaffe, Hitler would have likely moved forward with his Operation Sea Lion land invasion of the British Isles. This would have been devastating to the British people and all efforts to stem Hitler’s rise to power. Germany needed to control the English Channel to invade Britain, and the battle prevented them from gaining that valuable control.

Britain’s victory in the Battle of Britain demonstrated the courage and resilience of the country’s military and its people and allowed them to remain free from Nazi occupation. It also enabled the Americans to establish a base of operations in England to invade Normandy on D-Day in 1944.

READ MORE: D:Day: An Interactive

The Battle of Britain Movie

The Battle of Britain’s significance was not lost on Hollywood . In 1969, MGM released the movie The Battle of Britain, starring Michael Caine, Christopher Plummer , Robert Shaw and Laurence Olivier as commander Hugh Dowding.

Other notable productions include: Battle of Britain , a documentary produced by brothers Colin and Ewan McGregor to mark the event’s 70th anniversary; Voices of the Battle of Britain , a documentary which includes first-hand accounts of RAF veterans; and Mission of Honor , a movie which tells the story of RAF Hurricane Squadron 303.

Battle of Britain. International Churchill Society. Battle of Britain. WW 2 Facts. How the Luftwaffe Fought the Battle of Britain. Imperial War Museum. The Battle of Britain: A Brief Guide. Military History Matters.

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46 facts about the movie battle of britain.

Written by Kay Oakley

Modified & Updated: 05 Mar 2024

Reviewed by Sherman Smith

The Battle of Britain is a classic war film that depicts the famous aerial conflict between the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the German Luftwaffe during World War II. Released in 1969 and directed by Guy Hamilton, the movie tells the gripping story of the crucial battle that took place in the skies over Britain in 1940. With its stellar cast, breathtaking aerial sequences, and historical accuracy, Battle of Britain has become a beloved film among war movie enthusiasts and history buffs alike. In this article, we will explore 46 fascinating facts about the making of this iconic movie, including behind-the-scenes anecdotes, casting choices, production challenges, and the film’s lasting impact. So, fasten your seatbelts and get ready to dive into the exciting world of Battle of Britain!

Key Takeaways:

• “Battle of Britain” is a WWII movie that showcases the bravery of RAF pilots and the intense aerial battles. It’s a thrilling and historically accurate film that captivates audiences with its realistic portrayal of war.
• The movie’s success led to a resurgence of interest in WWII history and aviation, inspiring national pride and patriotism. Its legacy continues to be felt in popular culture, keeping the story of the Battle of Britain alive.

The Battle of Britain was a WWII movie released in 1969.

The movie, directed by Guy Hamilton, depicts the events of the Battle of Britain during the summer and autumn of 1940.

The film stars an ensemble cast of British and German actors.

Some notable actors include Laurence Olivier, Michael Caine, Trevor Howard, Christopher Plummer, and Ian McShane.

The movie was a major production with a budget of $12 million.

It was one of the most expensive films made in Britain at the time.

The Battle of Britain was filmed in various locations in England.

Real RAF bases were used for the aerial scenes, including Duxford and North Weald.

The movie received critical acclaim for its realistic portrayal of the aerial battles.

It won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography and was praised for its thrilling action sequences.

The film was a box office success, grossing over $13 million worldwide.

It remains one of the highest-grossing British war films of all time.

The aerial scenes in the movie were meticulously choreographed and executed.

The filmmakers used real vintage aircraft, including Spitfires and Hurricanes, to recreate the dogfights.

The Battle of Britain was the first war movie to extensively use aerial footage.

The filmmakers employed cameras mounted on aircraft to capture realistic action sequences.

The movie features both British and German perspectives.

It portrays the bravery and determination of the RAF pilots as well as the tactics and strategies employed by the German Luftwaffe.

The film’s score was composed by Ron Goodwin.

The iconic theme song, “Aces High,” became synonymous with the movie and is still recognized today.

Over 20,000 extras were used in the film.

Many of the extras were actual members of the Royal Air Force and Luftwaffe.

The movie was based on real events and historical accounts of the Battle of Britain.

It aimed to provide an accurate representation of the intense air campaign fought by the RAF and the Luftwaffe.

The Battle of Britain had a profound impact on public morale during WWII.

The movie sought to honor the sacrifice and bravery of the pilots involved in the battle.

The movie was shot in 70mm Super Panavision, enabling breathtaking aerial cinematography.

The wide-screen format added to the epic scale of the film.

The film was released to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Battle of Britain.

It served as a tribute to the real-life heroes who fought in the historic battle.

The Battle of Britain showcased the importance of radar technology in detecting enemy aircraft.

It highlighted how radar played a crucial role in the defense of Britain.

The movie was highly influential and inspired future war films.

Its realistic portrayal of aerial combat set a benchmark for subsequent movies in the genre.

The film depicts the resilience and spirit of the British people during a time of great adversity.

It pays tribute to the indomitable spirit of those who defended their country.

The Battle of Britain was adapted from a screenplay written by James Kennaway and Wilfred Greatorex.

The script went through several revisions to ensure historical accuracy.

The movie features iconic quotes, such as “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

This quote, attributed to Winston Churchill, captures the significance of the Battle of Britain.

The Battle of Britain was a joint British and American production.

It aimed to appeal to international audiences and highlight the shared history of the Allied forces.

The movie showcases the intense aerial tactics employed by both the RAF and the Luftwaffe.

It provides insight into the strategies used by the opposing sides during the battle.

The Battle of Britain was released during a time of renewed interest in WWII movies.

It capitalized on the wave of nostalgia for the wartime era.

The film’s production faced numerous challenges, including adverse weather conditions.

Despite these obstacles, the filmmakers persevered and created a visually stunning portrayal of the battle.

The movie emphasized the human cost of war, showing the devastating impact on both soldiers and civilians.

It depicted the tragedy and loss experienced during the conflict.

The Battle of Britain had a lasting impact on the war film genre.

It set a standard for historical accuracy and realistic portrayal of warfare.

The movie received widespread praise for its attention to detail and high production values.

It was hailed as one of the best war films ever made.

The Battle of Britain remains a popular film among history enthusiasts and aviation enthusiasts.

Its depiction of aerial combat continues to captivate audiences.

The movie’s success led to an increase in tourism to key locations connected to the Battle of Britain.

It generated interest in the historical sites associated with the battle.

The film’s cast underwent rigorous training to prepare for their roles.

They received instruction from experienced pilots to ensure authenticity.

The Battle of Britain was hailed as a tribute to the heroes who defended Britain against overwhelming odds.

It celebrated the bravery and resilience of the RAF pilots.

The movie was filmed using actual vintage aircraft, adding to its authenticity.

The scenes featuring aerial maneuvers were performed by skilled pilots.

The Battle of Britain received nominations for several prestigious awards.

It was recognized for its outstanding cinematography, visual effects, and production design.

The movie’s release coincided with the 25th anniversary of the end of World War II.

It served as a reminder of the sacrifices made during the war.

The Battle of Britain was re-released in cinemas and on home video formats multiple times.

It continues to find new audiences and remains a beloved classic.

The movie sparked renewed interest in studying the Battle of Britain in schools and universities.

It became a valuable educational resource for understanding the historical events.

The Battle of Britain showcased the importance of unity and cooperation in the face of adversity.

It demonstrated how different nations came together to defend shared values.

The film’s success contributed to a resurgence of interest in British cinema.

It highlighted the talent and creativity of the British film industry.

The Battle of Britain featured spectacular sound design, immersing audiences in the intensity of the battles.

The roaring engines and gunfire added to the realism of the film.

The movie’s release coincided with the Apollo 11 moon landing, capturing the public’s attention.

It provided a welcome distraction during a time of global fascination with space exploration.

The Battle of Britain was praised for its balanced portrayal of both the British and German forces.

It avoided overly simplistic portrayals and presented the complexities of war.

The movie’s screenplay drew inspiration from real-life accounts and personal stories of those involved in the battle.

It aimed to capture the human stories behind the broader conflict.

The Battle of Britain received widespread acclaim for its attention to historical accuracy.

It meticulously recreated the uniforms, equipment, and locations of the time.

The film’s success led to renewed interest in WWII history and aviation memorabilia.

Collectors and enthusiasts sought out items related to the Battle of Britain.

The Battle of Britain inspired a sense of national pride and patriotism among the British audience.

It reminded them of their country’s resilience in the face of adversity.

The movie’s legacy continues to be felt in popular culture.

It has inspired documentaries, books, and even video games, keeping the story of the Battle of Britain alive.

Overall, the movie “Battle of Britain” is a timeless classic that showcases the incredible bravery and resilience of the British people during World War II. With its stellar cast, remarkable aerial sequences, and accurate historical depiction, the film immerses viewers in the intensity and chaos of the battle for air superiority. The movie successfully captures the spirit of the time and pays homage to the real-life heroes who fought for the freedom of their nation.

Q: Is “Battle of Britain” based on a true story?

A: Yes, “Battle of Britain” is based on the real events that occurred during the Battle of Britain in 1940.

Q: Who directed the movie?

A: The movie was directed by Guy Hamilton, known for his work on other iconic films such as “ Goldfinger ” and “Diamonds Are Forever.

Q: Who are some of the main actors in the film?

A: “Battle of Britain” boasts an impressive ensemble cast, including Michael Caine, Laurence Olivier, Christopher Plummer , and Robert Shaw, among others.

Q: Are the aerial sequences in the movie authentic?

A: Yes, the filmmakers went to great lengths to ensure accuracy by using real vintage aircraft and collaborating with experienced pilots to recreate the intense dogfights.

Q: How accurate is the historical depiction in the film?

A: The movie strives to maintain historical accuracy, portraying the events, weaponry, and uniforms as closely as possible to the real Battle of Britain.

Q: What is the significance of the Battle of Britain?

A: The Battle of Britain was a crucial turning point in World War II, marking the first major defeat of the German forces and preventing a German invasion of England.

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Critic’s Pick

‘Civil War’ Review: We Have Met the Enemy and It Is Us. Again.

In Alex Garland’s tough new movie, a group of journalists led by Kirsten Dunst, as a photographer, travels a United States at war with itself.

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‘Civil War’ | Anatomy of a Scene

The writer and director alex garland narrates a sequence from his film..

“My name is Alex Garland and I’m the writer director of ‘Civil War’. So this particular clip is roughly around the halfway point of the movie and it’s these four journalists and they’re trying to get, in a very circuitous route, from New York to DC, and encountering various obstacles on the way. And this is one of those obstacles. What they find themselves stuck in is a battle between two snipers. And they are close to one of the snipers and the other sniper is somewhere unseen, but presumably in a large house that sits over a field and a hill. It’s a surrealist exchange and it’s surrounded by some very surrealist imagery, which is they’re, in broad daylight in broad sunshine, there’s no indication that we’re anywhere near winter in the filming. In fact, you can kind of tell it’s summer. But they’re surrounded by Christmas decorations. And in some ways, the Christmas decorations speak of a country, which is in disrepair, however silly it sounds. If you haven’t put away your Christmas decorations, clearly something isn’t going right.” “What’s going on?” “Someone in that house, they’re stuck. We’re stuck.” “And there’s a bit of imagery. It felt like it hit the right note. But the interesting thing about that imagery was that it was not production designed. We didn’t create it. We actually literally found it. We were driving along and we saw all of these Christmas decorations, basically exactly as they are in the film. They were about 100 yards away, just piled up by the side of the road. And it turned out, it was a guy who’d put on a winter wonderland festival. People had not dug his winter wonderland festival, and he’d gone bankrupt. And he had decided just to leave everything just strewn around on a farmer’s field, who was then absolutely furious. So in a way, there’s a loose parallel, which is the same implication that exists within the film exists within real life.” “You don’t understand a word I say. Yo. What’s over there in that house?” “Someone shooting.” “It’s to do with the fact that when things get extreme, the reasons why things got extreme no longer become relevant and the knife edge of the problem is all that really remains relevant. So it doesn’t actually matter, as it were, in this context, what side they’re fighting for or what the other person’s fighting for. It’s just reduced to a survival.”

By Manohla Dargis

A blunt, gut-twisting work of speculative fiction, “Civil War” opens with the United States at war with itself — literally, not just rhetorically. In Washington, D.C., the president is holed up in the White House; in a spookily depopulated New York, desperate people wait for water rations. It’s the near-future, and rooftop snipers, suicide bombers and wild-eyed randos are in the fight while an opposition faction with a two-star flag called the Western Forces, comprising Texas and California — as I said, this is speculative fiction — is leading the charge against what remains of the federal government. If you’re feeling triggered, you aren’t alone.

It’s mourning again in America, and it’s mesmerizingly, horribly gripping. Filled with bullets, consuming fires and terrific actors like Kirsten Dunst running for cover, the movie is a what-if nightmare stoked by memories of Jan. 6. As in what if the visions of some rioters had been realized, what if the nation was again broken by Civil War, what if the democratic experiment called America had come undone? If that sounds harrowing, you’re right. It’s one thing when a movie taps into childish fears with monsters under the bed; you’re eager to see what happens because you know how it will end (until the sequel). Adult fears are another matter.

In “Civil War,” the British filmmaker Alex Garland explores the unbearable if not the unthinkable, something he likes to do. A pop cultural savant, he made a splashy zeitgeist-ready debut with his 1996 best seller “The Beach,” a novel about a paradise that proves deadly, an evergreen metaphor for life and the basis for a silly film . That things in the world are not what they seem, and are often far worse, is a theme that Garland has continued pursuing in other dark fantasies, first as a screenwriter (“ 28 Days Later ”), and then as a writer-director (“ Ex Machina ”). His résumé is populated with zombies, clones and aliens, though reliably it is his outwardly ordinary characters you need to keep a closer watch on.

By the time “Civil War” opens, the fight has been raging for an undisclosed period yet long enough to have hollowed out cities and people’s faces alike. It’s unclear as to why the war started or who fired the first shot. Garland does scatter some hints; in one ugly scene, a militia type played by a jolting, scarily effective Jesse Plemons asks captives “what kind of American” they are. Yet whatever divisions preceded the conflict are left to your imagination, at least partly because Garland assumes you’ve been paying attention to recent events. Instead, he presents an outwardly and largely post-ideological landscape in which debates over policies, politics and American exceptionalism have been rendered moot by war.

‘Civil War’ Is Designed to Disturb You

One thing that remains familiar amid these ruins is the movie’s old-fashioned faith in journalism. Dunst, who’s sensational, plays Lee, a war photographer who works for Reuters alongside her friend, a reporter, Joel (the charismatic Wagner Moura). They’re in New York when you meet them, milling through a crowd anxiously waiting for water rations next to a protected tanker. It’s a fraught scene; the restless crowd is edging into mob panic, and Lee, camera in hand, is on high alert. As Garland’s own camera and Joel skitter about, Lee carves a path through the chaos, as if she knows exactly where she needs to be — and then a bomb goes off. By the time it does, an aspiring photojournalist, Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), is also in the mix.

The streamlined, insistently intimate story takes shape once Lee, Joel, Jessie and a veteran reporter, Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), pile into a van and head to Washington. Joel and Lee are hoping to interview the president (Nick Offerman), and Sammy and Jessie are riding along largely so that Garland can make the trip more interesting. Sammy serves as a stabilizing force (Henderson fills the van with humanizing warmth), while Jessie plays the eager upstart Lee takes under her resentful wing. It’s a tidily balanced sampling that the actors, with Garland’s banter and via some cozy downtime, turn into flesh-and-blood personalities, people whose vulnerability feeds the escalating tension with each mile.

As the miles and hours pass, Garland adds diversions and hurdles, including a pair of playful colleagues, Tony and Bohai (Nelson Lee and Evan Lai), and some spooky dudes guarding a gas station. Garland shrewdly exploits the tense emptiness of the land, turning strangers into potential threats and pretty country roads into ominously ambiguous byways. Smartly, he also recurrently focuses on Lee’s face, a heartbreakingly hard mask that Dunst lets slip brilliantly. As the journey continues, Garland further sketches in the bigger picture — the dollar is near-worthless, the F.B.I. is gone — but for the most part, he focuses on his travelers and the engulfing violence, the smoke and the tracer fire that they often don’t notice until they do.

Despite some much-needed lulls (for you, for the narrative rhythm), “Civil War” is unremittingly brutal or at least it feels that way. Many contemporary thrillers are far more overtly gruesome than this one, partly because violence is one way unimaginative directors can put a distinctive spin on otherwise interchangeable material: Cue the artful fountains of arterial spray. Part of what makes the carnage here feel incessant and palpably realistic is that Garland, whose visual approach is generally unfussy, doesn’t embellish the violence, turning it into an ornament of his virtuosity. Instead, the violence is direct, at times shockingly casual and unsettling, so much so that its unpleasantness almost comes as a surprise.

If the violence feels more intense than in a typical genre shoot ’em up, it’s also because, I think, with “Civil War,” Garland has made the movie that’s long been workshopped in American political discourse and in mass culture, and which entered wider circulation on Jan. 6. The raw power of Garland’s vision unquestionably owes much to the vivid scenes that beamed across the world that day when rioters, some wearing T-shirts emblazoned with “ MAGA civil war ,” swarmed the Capitol. Even so, watching this movie, I also flashed on other times in which Americans have relitigated the Civil War directly and not, on the screen and in the streets.

Movies have played a role in that relitigation for more than a century, at times grotesquely. Two of the most famous films in history — D.W. Griffith’s 1915 racist epic “The Birth of a Nation” (which became a Ku Klux Klan recruitment tool) and the romantic 1939 melodrama “Gone With the Wind” — are monuments to white supremacy and the myth of the Southern Lost Cause. Both were critical and popular hits. In the decades since, filmmakers have returned to the Civil War era to tell other stories in films like “Glory,” “Lincoln” and “Django Unchained” that in addressing the American past inevitably engage with its present.

There are no lofty or reassuring speeches in “Civil War,” and the movie doesn’t speak to the better angels of our nature the way so many films try to. Hollywood’s longstanding, deeply American imperative for happy endings maintains an iron grip on movies, even in ostensibly independent productions. There’s no such possibility for that in “Civil War.” The very premise of Garland’s movie means that — no matter what happens when or if Lee and the rest reach Washington — a happy ending is impossible, which makes this very tough going. Rarely have I seen a movie that made me so acutely uncomfortable or watched an actor’s face that, like Dunst’s, expressed a nation’s soul-sickness so vividly that it felt like an X-ray.

Civil War Rated R for war violence and mass death. Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes. In theaters.

An earlier version of this review misidentified an organization in the Civil War in the movie. It is the Western Forces, not the Western Front.

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Manohla Dargis is the chief film critic for The Times. More about Manohla Dargis

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