Customer Reviews

One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

One of Our Aircraft Is Missing is proof that in some circumstances, especially in the hands of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, a wartime propaganda movie can still be a first class motion picture of lasting quality and interest. It was released in 1942 and was the first film Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger made after formalizing their partnership as The Archers. They took equal credit for writing, producing and directing. In 1941 they had collaborated on The 49th Parallel. In 1943 they would make The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, the first of a series of masterpieces they created in the Forties. In practice, Powell directed, Pressburger wrote and did most of the producing, and they closely collaborated on every aspect of their films.

The movie tells the story of the crewmen who bailed out of their bomber, B for Bertie, over The Netherlands in 1941. Even more, it tells the story of the Dutch men and women who endangered their own lives to give the crew shelter, to protect them and to pass them on to the North coast of Holland until rescue could be arranged. Please note that some elements of the plot are discussed.

Bertie, a two-engine bomber, is returning from a run over Stuttgart when it's hit by flak. The plane loses an engine but the crew nurse the plane along until the second engine stutters out over Holland. The six-man crew bail out. Five land together; one is missing. There is John Haggard (Hugh Burden), the pilot and the youngest; Tom Earnshaw (Eric Portman), the co-pilot, a Yorkshire businessman before the war; Frank Shelley (Hugh Williams), the navigator, a West End actor with a famous wife; Bob Ashley (Emrys Jones), the radio operator, a soccer star; Geoff Hickman (Bernard Miles), the front gunner, an owner of an auto garage; and George Corbett (Godfrey Tearle), the rear gunner, at least twenty-five years older than the others, a knight, a member of parliament who immediately signed up with the Royal Air Force when war was declared.

The crew, which is shortly reunited, now must trust the men and women of Holland. With one clever ruse after another they finally arrive at a house on the edge of the North Sea, owned by a woman who professes hatred of the English. She runs fishing boats and has the town's German detachment headquartered in her home. Eventually, in the middle of a British bombing attack, she will take them down to her basement, put them in a row boat, have one of her fishing boats meet them and take them to a German rescue buoy bobbing in the middle of the North Sea. There is a radio in the buoy. With a little luck the crew will be picked up by a British ship before a German ship arrives. She has done this before.

At each step of the crew's journey through Holland they meet more men and women who will put their lives at risk for the crew. The Dutch know who they are and protect them. The Germans suspect there is a British crew about, but can't find them. We meet a burgomeister (Hay Petrie) whose young son plays a dangerous trick on the Germans, a young priest (Peter Ustinov), a brave church organist (Alec Clunes) and a frightened Dutch collaborator (Robert Helpmann). At each step the situations grow increasingly tense and dangerous.

One of Our Aircraft Is Missing is a propaganda movie. It is precisely because Powell and Pressburger were so unwilling to do the ordinary and the expected that it holds up very well nearly 70 years later. For instance...

--There is no phony derring do or heroics. The Dutch get the job done in threatening situations, but with bravery that is understated. The crew know their lives depend on these men and women and learn quickly to do as they are told.

--We hardly see a German. And we never see a ranting, raving German officer or an enlisted goon. The German threat hangs over the movie, but it is made more effective by being subtle.

--The class consciousness of many British war movies, with the officers brave and well bred and the working class enlisted men often used for comic relief, is muted. All members of the crew have their own characteristics. All are members of the same team.

--The bravest of the Dutch, the most resourceful and the ones with the iciest nerves, are the women. From Else Meertens (Pamela Brown), a schoolteacher in a small community, to Jo de Vries (Googie Withers), who plays a risky double game with the Germans and owns the fishing boats, it is the women to whom the crew owe their salvation.

--There is no musical score. What we hear is wind rushing by, boots marching, the creak of windmills, water lapping at a stone pier and, often, just silence. Only a director as sure of himself as Powell could get away without using music to cue us what to feel.

--As tense as many of the situations are, Powell and Pressburger never shy away from humor in unlikely situations. It works because it allows us to know the characters better and to let us catch our breath before another dangerous scene starts. And they are sly. You have to be quick (or read a couple of reviews, which is what I did) to catch at least two puns they throw into the action.

--The opening, and especially the closing, is typically quirky and satisfying. I won't even try to describe them.

The movie was dedicated to the members of the Dutch resistance. We last see the crew getting ready to board their new bomber, this one a big four-engine job. Their target? Berlin.

To those who do not know the genre, or are old enough to have contact with those who were there, this film is more than entertainment - it is instructional. The story is the (presumably true) tale of five british aviators who escaped from Nazi occupied Holland during WWII. They hide in lofts, cross dress and paddle down sewers to evade the crafty huns, with more than a little help from the natives. We get to know them as people and the Dutch as well, seeing that those involved in the struggle, both victim and liberator are real people escaping real evil. B&W suits this, and a pristine print would be, I think, disappointing. More than worth watching, it is inspiring - which I guess is the idea. Wait for the end soliloquy of the resistance woman who arranges the liberation of the aviators. She pretends by day to be a collaborator, but by night works for the resistance. During an air raid, in darkness from a second floor apartment, she hears the air raid sirens and watches from the window the Germans below scurrying to evade the bombs. Paraphraasing, she says, "Do you see that? Do you see them running like rats from your bombs? Do you think that we Dutch who threw the sea from our land would endure the Nazis? ..." Chilling stuff from a time of real heroes and villains. Don't pass this one up.

A fair print but as we are unable to get a pristine one, this is worthwhile. A mirror of their previous film 'The 49th Parallel'
Anything from the' Archers' is worth the expense and the trouble

This is a classic tale of aircrew down and escape. Notable for two things- actual use of early WWII Wellington bomber footage, and very intelligent use of a canal in creating suspense. Do not expect modern production values or special effects but for the time, both are quite good including a rather original crash scene. I suspect this DVD was mastered from a print used for TV broadcast in that there is a gap in the plot continuity near the end. The characters are predictable and somewhat wooden with most of the usual suspects in this type of movie. But for the fan of the classic 1940's black and white era at both Rank and Ealing (or a WWII aviation buff) go for this movie.

The film is quite good, and doesn't have any feel of being a propaganda movie; if I were never told that it was financed by the British Ministry of Information, I certainly wouldn't have guessed it. The story is simple but filled with character, detail, suspense and humor, and the fellowship of the British airmen and the Dutch resistance in the face of their common enemy is quite touching. The cinematography is striking as well, particularly the tension-filled scenes inside the Dutch church. Fans of Powell & Pressburger will definitely want to check it out.

Unfortunately, the quality of the Alpha Video DVD is surprisingly poor. It seems to have been mastered not from a film copy but from an old videotape. The sound in particular is very poor quality, and the dialogue is incomprehensible in the scenes inside the plane because of the background sound of the propellers. Amazingly, Alpha Video superimposes their logo over the credits, just in case anyone is wondering at that moment who to blame such a crummy-looking product.

I suppose even a poor copy of the movie is better than no copy at all, but DVDs like this really make one appreciate the work that the Criterion Collection does.

Rating applies to the film as I imagine it could be, if properly reproduced. Fortunately, the original 102 minute version and not the cut USA version is available. The DVD sound reproduction is so bad that subtitles are needed.

I was glad to see this movie released on DVD. We had an old, grainy VHS tape of the film which was hard to watch. I am surprised that ONE OF OUR AIRCRAFT IS MISSING is not more well known because it really is a good story. Five British soldiers escape from their aircraft before it crashes. They land in Holland and are rescued by Dutch citizens working with the resistance against the Nazis. The story is about how the soldiers are transferred to a few towns before reaching the sea and a rescue ship. At times they are just one jump ahead of the Nazis. Very good characterizations all along the way -- British movies are good at this. The quality of the film is still not great, but that is a small criticism. You will enjoy an interesting story and a part of history.

...the film itself is rather tame, nonviolent, a little blood at the end. A quite extended sequence, of barely perceptible tension, shows the bomber crew on their way to the target in Germany. On the way back to England, they have to bail out over Holland. In the bits showing the German occupiers of the Netherlands, they are clumsy bunglers, easily eluded. The Hollanders are clean, tidy, dozens of them ready, willing, and able to help the six downed crew members. Underground workers Pamela Brown and Googie Withers are women of iron, adamant that their homeland will endure. Robert Helpmann, a German-collabo, is immediately detestable with his popping eyes and tight little suit, and is quickly outsmarted. Peter Ustinov as the minister is startlingly young, and already unique in aura.

So the six crewmen manage to boat out into the North Sea and meet the rescue vessel. Then a trifle cutely, the film is interrupted by a note that the story was supposed to end at this point, but some of the film crew insisted they wanted a bit more, not to be left hanging. So the film resumes...

Michael Powell's staging of the scenes, the camerawork by Ronald Neame, and the editing by David Lean are masterly--the real reason to see this film. The print is quite good. But I found the audio semi-intelligible (those rapid English deliveries also contributed), tubby, as if the upper frequencies had been sheared off to clean up the soundtrack.