MovieChat Forums > Battle of Britain (1969) Discussion > The flying is great, the talking scenes ...

The flying is great, the talking scenes are dull

posted 12 years ago by jh66
7 replies | jump to latest

Many of the flying scenes are fantastic, thanks to the Spanish Air Force at the time who still had old Luftwaffe aircraft, and also owners of WWII aircraft.

But the dull and ineptly scripted/acted ground scenes-

Ian McShane's lifeless and unemotional pilot, despite losing his wife and two young boys.

Susannah York's useless attempt at acting- the transfer, the dealing with the dead WAAF's etc?

Thank God for Robert Shaw- fiery, aggressive and a good actor!

[–] icaptainchaos 11 years ago

I have to agree with you - it wasn't just Susannah York who was bad - I think that the whole WAAF brigade wrecked it for me.

[–] Ethereal-Cloud 11 years ago

Lots of impressive aeronautical action scenes on the outside, but hollow on the inside.

How about this analogy for the movie?: "All sizzle, no steak."

[–] darryl-tahirali 10 years ago

How about this analogy for the movie?: "All sizzle, no steak." - Ethereal-Cloud

"The dogfights sizzle; the actors fizzle."

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"Music begins where words leave off." - Village wisdom

[–] FightingConch1970 10 years ago

The flying scenes are some of the best ever.

[–] ATG6 (3000) 2 years ago

The flying was great, and so was Susannah York.

The script needed a lot of work. It was hard to follow what was happening when, where, and why, and the characters that were followed seemed pretty random.

[–] Squeeth2 10 years ago

The bits on the ground are necessary to tell the story and Susannah York's role is necessary for the big reveal about why Christopher Plummer has a bee up his bum.

Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.

[–] liscarkat (19416) 3 years ago

I can bear with it all, except for the Plummer-York romance, which should have been cut. But it's all worth sitting through for the spectacular flying scenes and Ron Goodwin's brilliant score.