A bomber, "B for Bertie", is hit by anti-aircraft fire while raiding
Stuttgart. the engines manage to carry her to The Netherlands and then the crew
of six bale out and the rest of the film is concerned with telling the story
of their adventures before they see England again.
Straight-forward action on the surface and in the material there is little
to suggest that this is an important British film. But even before the
bomber is hit, there has been enough to indicate that the director, Mr
Michael Powell, is interested in more than flight and pursuit, disguise
and escape. He has, with the help of Mr Godfrey Tearle, Mr Bernard Miles,
Mr Hugh Williams, Mr Eric Portman, Mr Hugh Burden and Mr Emrys Jones,
established the personalities of the crew - baronet, garage proprietor,
actor, Yorkshire businessman, pilot, professional footballer - and all of
them continue to express themselves in their natural idiom.
The dialogue hits off their accents, and, when their parachutes bring them
to The Netherlands, it becomes clear that the people of that country will speak
with the same sane clarity and will not be used crudely as necessary counters
in the game of escape. Mr Powell does not say much and there are no shots
of brutal Nazis bayoneting babies, but he conveys the brooding, oppressive,
pervasive atmosphere that hangs over the occupied countries. The Nazis are
there, and their presence is brought vividly to the senses by the scrape
of their jack-boots on the stone floor of a church, by their shadows in
an open doorway; and this sinister understatement of their power flings
into
relief the courage of a population which is prepared to work against them
and to dare death to help those who pledged in the cause of freedom.
Miss Pamela Brown, as a Dutch schoolmistress, who first mistrusts the
English airmen and suspects them to be Nazi agents and Miss Googie Withers
as the woman who makes the final arrangements for their voyage across the
North Sea, are admirable in their suggestion of the nerve and resource of
the Dutch women.
Back to index
