Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Movie of the Day

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One of Our Aircraft is Missing (1942)



This films is based on a true story of a crew of Englishmen that have to bail out over Holland when the Nazi's shoot down their bomber named B for Bertie. The story starts as the men are getting ready for the mission. One item of note is, Emrys Jones, who plays footballer Bob Ashley (radio operator in B for Bertie), was actually a pro footballer in England before he became an actor.




After their plane is shot down, the crew led by Eric Portman and Hugh Burden, must rely on the Dutch underground to try and make it back to England without being caught by the Germans. A young Peter Ustinov plays a priest that helps the boys on their way. It was one of his first roles.



This movie plays homage to the brave men and women of the Dutch underground that saved the crew of B for Bertie and many other Allied flyers that were shot down over Holland. The whole episode is a true story and very enjoyable. The crew has one adventure after another from capturing a quizzling, to dressing up as Dutch women, to finding their lost crew member Bob Ashley playing a football game with the Dutch resistance, the movie goes at a non-stop pace of great dialog and wonderful performances.




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There is some historic significance to this picture, especially at the end when the crew is able to row out onto the sea and takes over a German downed flyer rescue buoy where they wait it out until an allied ship comes by. You rarely get to see these rescue buoys and it appears as if they are using the real deal.

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All in all I love this picture. It was made during the war in England. That in itself has huge historical significance. This film is available for a very low price as part of many WWII movie sets. If you are a WWII history buff, or just really love movies from the 40's, this movie should find its way into your home. I highly recommend it.

For more info on this film goto:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035153/

Thanks for Reading.

1 comment:

Ollie said...

This is a favorite film, but 'merely typical' of Powell & Pressberger films - which have such a layering and construction finesse that they become wonderful products on that basis alone.

ONE OF OUR AIRCRAFT has been oft-cited as a "DVD to be released in North America" but still hasn't made it. 49TH PARALLEL has, and LIFE & DEATH OF COL BLIMP, too, and both are strong candidates for equal attention as ONE.

BATTLE OF RIVER PLATE (or the more accurate PURSUIT OF GRAF SPEE), ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT and SMALL BACK ROOM hopefully will get Region-1 releases soon, too.

Purchasing the Region-2 releases and copying them with something like DVD SHRINK or other region-encoding removal software IS an allowable way to legally backup (and view) your own property, by the way.