Battle of Britain (1969)
"What General Weygand called the 'Battle of France' is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin." - Winston Churchill, June 18th, 1940.
A war film that is generally faithful to events depicting a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defended the United Kingdom against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force, the Luftwaffe.
As it is a genuine depiction of events and not a piece of fiction it's perhaps not as exciting as it could be seeing as there are no sub plots or daring do heroics that never occurred. However what we have is a fabulous international cast playing largely real people and some superb aerial sequences of dog fights in the English skies using 100 authentic aircraft.
At the time American critics weren't complimentary about the film - probably because it wasn't America winning a war - but their film producers were quick to use it's aerial footage in their own movies such as Midway (1976).
"Never was so much owed by so many to so few" - Winston Churchill, August 20th, 1940.
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