Terrific, just like it says on the poster! Classic British WWII aviation story from team Emeric Pressburger & Michael Powell, their first as The Archers, but missing the distinctive arrow-pierced target logo. It lives a bit in the shadow of the starry 49th PARALLEL/’41 just before and the epic LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP/’43 just after, but is every bit as good; a real ensemble piece about a bombing run over Germany that hits trouble coming home. Ditching their plane in Holland, the six-man crew spend most of the film in a suspense-filled journey trying to reach the coast, helped by various Dutch partisans, particularly a pair of brave women in Pamela Brown & Googie Withers. The cast is all top-drawer character types and there's great support from debuting Peter Ustinov's priest; eccentric ballet dancer Robert Helpmann as a shifty-eyed Dutch Quisling; even a neat cameo right at the end from Roland Culver. And the technical work is still a pip after all these years & all those wartime restrictions. Heck, check out the credits: Editor David Lean; Cinematographer Ronald Neame with assistants Robert Krasker & Guy Green. All building to an emotional kick in the third act that may blindside you. These things hardly come any better.
DOUBLE-BILL: Unlike England, where the war had been grinding on three long years and the audience well toughened up, over in Hollywood that year, the war was months not years old. So the tone was a bit more fantastic, rah-rah & fun when Errol Flynn, Ronald Reagan & Co. crash land inside Germany and fight their way out in Raoul Walsh’s far more lighthearted DESPERATE JOURNEY/’42. (See below)
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