The Dam Busters. (PG.)
Directed by Michael Anderson. 1955.
Starring Richard Todd, Michael Redgrave, Basil Sydney, George Baker, Derek Farr, Ernest Clark, Nigel Stock, Robert Shaw and Bill Kerr. Black and White. Out on DVD/ Blu-ray/ EST from Studiocanal Vintage Classics. 122 mins.
It is appropriate that the anniversary being celebrated with this release is that of the 1943 military action itself, rather than the 1955 film. Over the years it has gone from being a film version of a landmark wartime action to something interchangeable with the actual act. It's a piece of pageantry, a state occasion. It even has its own march. Which is a testament to the realism and honesty with which it is filmed. You can accept that the actual events were very much like this: only with more realistic explosions.
(Which is why it is such a shock that the disc of this brand new 4K restoration opens with the necessity of viewers having to make a choice between United Kingdom and Deutschland versions. Why would the deutchs want to see this? Maybe the 21st century Boche sit around watch British WWII movies in the way that we obsess over failed World Cup campaigns? )
If it is a patriotic flag-waver, it is more a celebration of our technical innovation than military might. The first part is all about Barnes Wallis ( Redgrave) persevering with his wacky bouncing bomb idea, in the face of bureaucratic indifference. It's less John Mills and Sylvia Sims in Ice Cold in Alex, more Raymond Baxter and Michael Rodd in Tomorrow's World.
This review arrives from the better-late-than-never department - it seems some thieving postie got the first disc sent to me - which for me is kind of appropriate because I have to admit I'd never actually seen it before. Although with something like The Dam Busters having seen it or not is somehow irrelevant. I've never actually seen a Royal Wedding, but I know how they go.
So, now, having finally seen it, would it be permissible to say it's just a wee bit disappointing?
What's good about it is that sense of decency and reserve, the sly way the men's emotions are portrayed. A few clipped lines and tight smiles representing great churning depths of fear. The performances are all top-notch, especially Redgrave's Wallis, a study in avuncular obsession. The thing you can't help but notice about Richard Todd, playing Wing Commander Guy Gibson the leader of the squadron tasked with delivering the bombs, is that he is always the shortest person in any room. But, far from being another actor with a Tom Cruise complex the extras revealed that he was a genuine war hero, had a rather big role in D-Day.
What is not so good is the finale. 75% of the film is building up to it but when it comes, the raid, on screen, is confused and muddled. Of course, the special effects are not what we expect today but I think that'd be easily overlooked if everything else was presented more clearly. The shots of Wallis and the top brass, listening back in Blighty for any news, have far more tension than those in the planes.
The dog called N-word doesn't help. Clips of Gibson's faithful friend featured in Pink Floyd The Wall, from which I guessed he might just be in a couple of scenes of the pilots landing back at base and the faithful dog greeting them on the runway. In fact, he plays an integral part in the film and is also the choice for one of the code words. So it's N-word this and N-word that all the way through. The disc starts with a little apology for the language at the beginning and though rewriting history is always objectionable, I can't say I would've been too upset if they'd tweaked it to "Tigger."
I may be a marble-hearted fiend with anti-freeze in my veins, but any effective tale of stiff upper lipped WWII heroics can usually be relied on to choke me up. (The first five minutes of A Matter of Life And Death destroys me every time.) At the start, when the Dam Busters March by Eric Coates strikes up I fully expected this to be similarly stirring but, if I'm honest, I was largely unmoved.
Extras
If you can't decide whether you want a Blu-ray or a DVD it comes in a five-disc Collectors Edition with two of each format: one in the 4:3 ratio and the other in 16:9. There is also a disc of Extras, and very good ones too.
New are a 40-minute Making Of documentary and a 4-minute piece about the restoration.
From the archives are an hour-long TV piece, 617 Squadron Remembers about the raid with the surviving members, a short piece on the film's 1955 Royal Command Performance and a half hour documentary on Barnes Wallis. Best of all, for me, is the actual footage of the test drops. These appear in the film but in a censored form to disguise their cylindrical shape because that was still classified when the film was made. There's something very serene, very satisfying about watching them skip across the water.
Directed by Michael Anderson. 1955.
Starring Richard Todd, Michael Redgrave, Basil Sydney, George Baker, Derek Farr, Ernest Clark, Nigel Stock, Robert Shaw and Bill Kerr. Black and White. Out on DVD/ Blu-ray/ EST from Studiocanal Vintage Classics. 122 mins.
It is appropriate that the anniversary being celebrated with this release is that of the 1943 military action itself, rather than the 1955 film. Over the years it has gone from being a film version of a landmark wartime action to something interchangeable with the actual act. It's a piece of pageantry, a state occasion. It even has its own march. Which is a testament to the realism and honesty with which it is filmed. You can accept that the actual events were very much like this: only with more realistic explosions.
(Which is why it is such a shock that the disc of this brand new 4K restoration opens with the necessity of viewers having to make a choice between United Kingdom and Deutschland versions. Why would the deutchs want to see this? Maybe the 21st century Boche sit around watch British WWII movies in the way that we obsess over failed World Cup campaigns? )
If it is a patriotic flag-waver, it is more a celebration of our technical innovation than military might. The first part is all about Barnes Wallis ( Redgrave) persevering with his wacky bouncing bomb idea, in the face of bureaucratic indifference. It's less John Mills and Sylvia Sims in Ice Cold in Alex, more Raymond Baxter and Michael Rodd in Tomorrow's World.
This review arrives from the better-late-than-never department - it seems some thieving postie got the first disc sent to me - which for me is kind of appropriate because I have to admit I'd never actually seen it before. Although with something like The Dam Busters having seen it or not is somehow irrelevant. I've never actually seen a Royal Wedding, but I know how they go.
So, now, having finally seen it, would it be permissible to say it's just a wee bit disappointing?
What's good about it is that sense of decency and reserve, the sly way the men's emotions are portrayed. A few clipped lines and tight smiles representing great churning depths of fear. The performances are all top-notch, especially Redgrave's Wallis, a study in avuncular obsession. The thing you can't help but notice about Richard Todd, playing Wing Commander Guy Gibson the leader of the squadron tasked with delivering the bombs, is that he is always the shortest person in any room. But, far from being another actor with a Tom Cruise complex the extras revealed that he was a genuine war hero, had a rather big role in D-Day.
What is not so good is the finale. 75% of the film is building up to it but when it comes, the raid, on screen, is confused and muddled. Of course, the special effects are not what we expect today but I think that'd be easily overlooked if everything else was presented more clearly. The shots of Wallis and the top brass, listening back in Blighty for any news, have far more tension than those in the planes.
The dog called N-word doesn't help. Clips of Gibson's faithful friend featured in Pink Floyd The Wall, from which I guessed he might just be in a couple of scenes of the pilots landing back at base and the faithful dog greeting them on the runway. In fact, he plays an integral part in the film and is also the choice for one of the code words. So it's N-word this and N-word that all the way through. The disc starts with a little apology for the language at the beginning and though rewriting history is always objectionable, I can't say I would've been too upset if they'd tweaked it to "Tigger."
I may be a marble-hearted fiend with anti-freeze in my veins, but any effective tale of stiff upper lipped WWII heroics can usually be relied on to choke me up. (The first five minutes of A Matter of Life And Death destroys me every time.) At the start, when the Dam Busters March by Eric Coates strikes up I fully expected this to be similarly stirring but, if I'm honest, I was largely unmoved.
Extras
If you can't decide whether you want a Blu-ray or a DVD it comes in a five-disc Collectors Edition with two of each format: one in the 4:3 ratio and the other in 16:9. There is also a disc of Extras, and very good ones too.
New are a 40-minute Making Of documentary and a 4-minute piece about the restoration.
From the archives are an hour-long TV piece, 617 Squadron Remembers about the raid with the surviving members, a short piece on the film's 1955 Royal Command Performance and a half hour documentary on Barnes Wallis. Best of all, for me, is the actual footage of the test drops. These appear in the film but in a censored form to disguise their cylindrical shape because that was still classified when the film was made. There's something very serene, very satisfying about watching them skip across the water.
