While there's definitely the whiff of wartime propaganda surrounding this 1945 Terence Rattigan - Anthony Asquith collaboration, the former as writer, the latter as director, it's still a highly entertaining feature focusing on the expected contemporary themes of Anglo-American cooperation, personal sacrifice and of course that old staple, the British stiff upper lip.
There's a neat framing device employed right from the start as we revisit the now abandoned airfield where pretty much all the action takes place, with the wandering camera picking up on various items the significance of which will become clearer as we drift back to 1940 and the extended flashback which forms the bulk of the movie.
Initially the place is home to a band of British fliers and their air-base but the action widens out to take in a nearby hotel which the airmen frequent on their time-off. It's owned and run by the attractive Miss Todd or Toddy as everyone calls her (Rosamund John) and it's not long before the debonair, poetry-writing Michael Redgrave gets the hots for her, making her a hot Toddy, I guess you could say. Also there is long-time guest, an old harridan of an aunt Joyce Carey, who completely dominates her meek but pretty young niece played by Renée Asherson.
Then onto the scene springs young John Mills as a cocky new pilot with only 15 hours flying experience, determined to succeed but with a few rough edges about him. Nevertheless he starts to woo the young niece.
The movie doesn't shy away from death as early in the piece two succeeding squadron leaders are killed on bombing missions, the first of them a young Trevor Howard, who saw his career move forward after making a good impression here. There are no actual fighter-plane combat scenes and with one notable exception, any character deaths all occur off-screen, but this isn't really an action movie as such, it's unmistakably a melodrama.
While the story is episodic as we see time passing down to 1942, the characters and situations are developed nicely. The handsome and confident American pilots who later join the British crowd at the base nevertheless stop short of stealing anyone's girl or causing any discord in the ranks.
I could have done without Stanley Holloway's turn as the boring batman always trying to force another old joke on anyone who will hear him but Mills, Howard and Redgrave as the R. A. F. Boys, Douglass Montgomery and Bonar Colleano as their American counterparts and John, Carey and Asherson in the main female parts are all credibly in-character
Yes, the dialogue and poetry are both a little ripe at the times and some of the accents a bit cut-glass, but the story is moved along nicely by director Asquith who even finds room to fit in a young Jean Simmons singing a song at a hotel dance.
I can easily imagine this well-made movie keeping its wartime audience entertained, something it's still capable of doing today at least so far as I was concerned.
There's a neat framing device employed right from the start as we revisit the now abandoned airfield where pretty much all the action takes place, with the wandering camera picking up on various items the significance of which will become clearer as we drift back to 1940 and the extended flashback which forms the bulk of the movie.
Initially the place is home to a band of British fliers and their air-base but the action widens out to take in a nearby hotel which the airmen frequent on their time-off. It's owned and run by the attractive Miss Todd or Toddy as everyone calls her (Rosamund John) and it's not long before the debonair, poetry-writing Michael Redgrave gets the hots for her, making her a hot Toddy, I guess you could say. Also there is long-time guest, an old harridan of an aunt Joyce Carey, who completely dominates her meek but pretty young niece played by Renée Asherson.
Then onto the scene springs young John Mills as a cocky new pilot with only 15 hours flying experience, determined to succeed but with a few rough edges about him. Nevertheless he starts to woo the young niece.
The movie doesn't shy away from death as early in the piece two succeeding squadron leaders are killed on bombing missions, the first of them a young Trevor Howard, who saw his career move forward after making a good impression here. There are no actual fighter-plane combat scenes and with one notable exception, any character deaths all occur off-screen, but this isn't really an action movie as such, it's unmistakably a melodrama.
While the story is episodic as we see time passing down to 1942, the characters and situations are developed nicely. The handsome and confident American pilots who later join the British crowd at the base nevertheless stop short of stealing anyone's girl or causing any discord in the ranks.
I could have done without Stanley Holloway's turn as the boring batman always trying to force another old joke on anyone who will hear him but Mills, Howard and Redgrave as the R. A. F. Boys, Douglass Montgomery and Bonar Colleano as their American counterparts and John, Carey and Asherson in the main female parts are all credibly in-character
Yes, the dialogue and poetry are both a little ripe at the times and some of the accents a bit cut-glass, but the story is moved along nicely by director Asquith who even finds room to fit in a young Jean Simmons singing a song at a hotel dance.
I can easily imagine this well-made movie keeping its wartime audience entertained, something it's still capable of doing today at least so far as I was concerned.