Cheerleading Britain's entrance into WWII, Alexander Korda's feature-length RAF ad pits good imperialism (the Queen's, natch) versus bad imperialism (Hitler's). After reels of stock footage extolling national progress and intercutting healthy young footballers with goosestepping Huns, the movie sets up tour through aircraft-tinkering documentary, bits sewn in from Fire Over England and reconstructions of bombing raids, with bonus parachuting star-cameos by Merle Oberon and Ralph Richardson. For all its historic value, military propaganda remains one of my least favorite genres; I caught this one mainly because Michael Powell was listed among the filmmakers pitching in (Brian Desmond Hurst and Adrian Brunel are the others), though, except for a few shots introducing the fighter command room, my auteurist radar was down. (Powell's 1941 short An Airman's Letter to His Mother is a considerably richer piece of wartime morale-boosting.) Despite a British sense of understatement and lack of hysteria, there really is little to set it apart from such Yank counterparts as Dive Bomber or Captains of the Clouds -- all culminate with aerial bombers locked in Wagnerian, V-for-Victory formations. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce
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