Film Review: Battle of Britain, 1969

"Never ... was so much owed by so many to so few." Winston Churchill.

A fabulous vintage epic, jam packed with a who's who of British stars of the era - Laurence Olivier, Christopher Plummer, Kenneth More, Michael Caine, Ralph Richardson, Harry Andrews - that does a sterling job of portraying a truly momentous moment in our recent history.

Robert Shaw, Christopher Plummer and... is that Lovejoy? (Ian McShane)

Robert Shaw's 'Skipper' character is based on 'Sailor' Malan.

South African RAF ace Malan.

Of course, given the subject, there's a Brit-o-centric spin, and plenty of the large and stellar cast clearly enjoy hamming it up as plucky plummy RAF types. But for all the cant, propaganda and myth, and despite years of so-called revisionist tweaking regarding the 'facts' of history (as far as they can be known), this remains a hugely compelling story. And it's a story very well told, in this appropriately lengthy and suitably epic production.

Dowding (in wheelchair) visits the production at Duxford. [1]

This image touches a nostalgia nerve for me! [2]

Unlike 633 Squadron, or even Memphis Belle, despite the passing of the years, this has aged remarkably well (except for the ketchup blood!). I would love to have spent ages researching this superb film, and the massive amount of work that went into making it, but whilst doing picture research I found this excellent site, where a guy called Dave has done all the hard work already.

This excellent pic gives one a sense of the grand scale of the production.

Me 109s. Real, or models. Hard to say!

You can read plot précis elsewhere online. This post is really just a chance for me to say that this is a truly great film, which I always thoroughly enjoy watching. And it will bear repeated viewing. It's a shame there aren't more films made with this level of passionate attention to detail. And now, what with CGI, we're unlikely to see anything that goes to similar lengths to physically replicate the epic events depicted so well here.

A 'lobby card' for the movie. Very impressive!

Fabulous and fully functional flying large scale models were used in the production.

Another fab lobby card, showing aerial combat. Superb!

The Battle Of Britain belongs in the select and august company of The Longest Day, as a uniquely brilliant example of cinematic homage to key events of WWII. And in this review I'm simpy registering my vote for this as a solid-gold classic. 

UPDATE: 

It's been pointed out - quite right to - that I've been rather remiss in not making any reference to Susannah York. So, here she is:

In uniform...

under cover...

... and getting out of uniform, soon to be under the covers.

----------
NOTES:


[1] Visits to RAF Duxford, our 'local' Imperial War Museum and airshow venue, were a feature of my childhood, a tradition I've kept up into adulthood.

[2] I remember getting a postcard form a childhood friend with this picture on it.

Bubblegum trading cards.

A pal of mine has an almost complete set of old 'trading cards' on The Battle of Britain. I'm not sure if these were a movie tie-in or not. They're not mentioned amongst the 'merchandise' section of the Wikipedia entry on the film. I bought a few duplicates off my buddy. 

Dave's excellent site about the movie, already linked to above, also has a compete gallery of these cards (here), but only showing the fronts. A more complete exposition, showing both front and back (the reverse face of each card reproduces topical newspaper excerpts) can be found here.

Kit Review: 1/72 Zvezda 88mm Flak 36/37

NB Another asynchronous post! 

Compared with the rather clunky (but still fun to build) Airfix 88mm, this Zvezda kit is a terrific model. The gun itself is fantastic  - much more solid, and far better detailed - and the four crew are very nicely sculpted. It all goes together pretty easily too. For the money it's a shame they don't include any spare ammo, shell cases, etc. Nor are there either of the transportation bogeys. My recent Academy models have rather spoiled me in terms of extras.

I'd like a little battery of these. 

These guns are so cool looking. I saw one on my recent visit to Muckleburgh, and there's also the one at Duxford (see pictures of both below). I doubt I'll do much in the way of extra detailing for this, as it looks detailed enough as is. But the photos I've taken of the aforementioned museum exhibits should at least be good for painting ref. 

Still unpainted at the mo'!

Moulding quality is excellent, with very little flash, and not much cleaning up required besides the basic snipping and trimming from the sprues. You can leave the rotating parts un-glued, to facilitate movement. The fine detailing does mean that several elements to of this model are rather fragile. I have occasionally replaced such parts with metal/wire on a few models before. But I didn't feel like making the effort on this occasion.

Figures are pretty much perfectly proportioned, in very naturalistic poses. 

Here are a few of my reference snaps, from those museum visits: The Duxford example is displayed deployed, in a mocked up bombed out building; the Muckleburgh one is in transportation mode, atop its two bogeys. The Zvezda box art has the gun and crew in early war mode, with greys and grey-greens predominant. I'll probably go with a later war dunkelgelb based scheme of some sort.

The Duxford 88mm, in a light cream colour.

The Muck' 88, in tricolour camo'.

Good view of breech, and also of munitions.

And finally, here's a pic showing the Zvezda and the Airfix 88s together. Another kit I'd like is the Revell one that has the 88mm, plus the two bogeys, and a half-track... like the Airfix kit, only - I assume? - much better quality in terms of details and mouldings, etc.

Zvezda at top, and Airfix below.

Duxford Dioramas Pt I - 1/76 Normandy 1944

Duxford Dioramas Pt I - AB/MAFVA Normandy 1944 Diorama, Duxford IWM Land Warfare Hall.

Mobile, HQ: officers gather round a map on the bonnet of a jeep, as

tanks, armoured cars and artillery head west, for the Front and Berlin.

I think this is what they called the bocage.

I love this tank model. I think it's a Churchill AVRE with a fascine [1] bundle. It's a pity about the reflections from the glass case housing the model.

I'm no expert on Allied tanks. Is this a Churchill AVRE with Petard mortar?

I doctored the above pic, for the banner pic of this post (see very top of post), substituting some (genuine) Normandy 1944 sky for the innards of the Duxford IWM Land warfare hall. Does it work?

Like I already said... I'm not so au fait with Allied materiél of WWII: is this

a British vehicle, or a bit of lend-lease from FDR and Uncle Sam?

Old news this, for me, really...

But... back in October 2012 my wife and I visited Duxford Imperial War Museum. I took tons of pics of (almost) everything that caught my eye. But one of the things I was most keen to photograph was a Normandy 1944 diorama, built by members of the London branch of the MAFVA (Miniature Armoured Fighting Vehicles Association), using AB figures, many sculpted especially for the diorama, by one of my figure-sculpting heroes, Anthony Barton.

I believe this is a Morris C8 Quad and 25 pdr artillery

team. Stopping for a well-earned lunch break.

Tony Barton's figures are just fabulous. So naturalistic!

One reason I haven't posted this until now was that I've been meaning to contact Duxford and see if I can arrange a visit to take some much better pictures. My pics were taken with a selection of devices, none of which (our digital camera, a Canon IXUS something-or-other, and my iPad, chiefly) are that good. I also took the pics of the model as it is, under glass and poorly lit.

Looking East, from the formerly German-held end.

Looking west, towards the ruined building on the high ground.

A watercolour sketch, by Dan Taylor and Malcom Mayes,

used in preparing the layout of diorama. [2]

But when I started researching the model, I discovered this very interesting article:

http://www.militarymodelling.com/news/article/normandy-diorama/3299#

... which tells a lot about the building of this excellent diorama. And the pictures of the finished model in that article, clearly taken using flash are (no offence to the photographer), even worse than mine! So I thought what the heck, I'll post and be damned. Though I have to confess, I do still harbour a deep desire to go back and get some much better pics. This fab diorama definitely deserves better! The pictures directly above and below this section of text are from the Military Modelling website, and are offer a wonderful glimpse into how the model was designed and executed.

MAFVA member Bruce Harron

works on the terrain, in situ! [2]

Thanks to the Military Modelling article I learned that the scenario depicts an imaginary scene from the Normandy campaign, set in 'a period of post D-Day, but just before Operation Goodwood, the theme being 'Components of an Army'. In this case for 'components' read vehicles.' It's also fascinating to learn about the planning and time-frame involved. I've always loved dioramas, and long harboured the desire of building one. But the closest I've ever got, so far at any rate, was owning an Esci diorama kit (never finished) and the Airfix Hougoumont set, as a kid!

This project was conceptualised in 2002, and commissioned with a brief to be finished by 2004, for the 60th anniversary of the Normandy campaign. Given the general eastward thrust of the Allied movements against the Germans I'd assumed that this would also be, excuse the inevitable pun, the axis of the action on this model. But it turns out it's actually a north/south alignment, shown lengthwise. If you like the pics here, you really must read the Military Modelling article, which is highly enlightening.

The hub of the action: what a great diorama! So much

going on. And the real feel of a campaign underway.

The foot soldiers slog slowly past vehicles that are

starting to pile up in a picturesque bocage traffic jam.

It ain't all fun and games. Here we get a

glimpse of the cost of combat.

Since returning to model-making I've begun to go back to those youthful dreams of occasionally doing it as a possible source of income. Idle speculation, perhaps? Well, it looks and sounds like a dream job to me, although I expect for most who do it supplements other and better more reliable incomes. Still, I smiled when I read this, in John Rulton's article: 'With a need to achieve a realistic view a short holiday in Normandy proved beneficial.' [3]

Due to the nature of the commission, which was designed in part to contextualise some of the vehicles that the Duxford IWM collection has in the Land Warfare Hall, within a scene of British troops behind the front line, the Germans aren't so well represented on this diorama (whilst they are in the collection of real vehicles). What little German content there is is limited to some abandoned materiél and a few hapless prisoners, all that remains of the once triumphant Whermacht in this part of northern France.

Not so much 'Achtung, Panzer!' as 'Kaput, Sonderkraftfahrzeug!'

An abandoned 88mm Flak gun, with the bogies detached,

and a nice mess of empty shell cases lying strewn around.

The 'master race' subjugated. The indignity

of it: even my pic of them is crap!

It's fascinating to read the scenario that's envisaged by the team that built this superb model, and the various processes involved in realising it. I discovered that most of the vehicles were made using commercially available kits, almost all of which were souped up considerably. But there were also some scratch built elements, from the beautiful farmhouse, by Dan Taylor, to a Fremch farmers cart, and even some of the vehicles; for example John Rulton did the Morris C8 Quads, which were then cast in resin by Milicast. 

I didn't know this initially, as I thought all the figures were AB, but the MM article says there are also a good number by Milicast. There are about 400 figures on the diorama in total. I haven't counted the number or listed the types of vehicles. But I think I might try and do so on my next visit! The model itself is 8 feet by 4 feet, and was made in four 4' x 2' modules. When time allows I'd like to fill in a bit more detail about the model and the scene it depicts. But for now I hope you might enjoy the pics.

An MP directs another artillery team into a field.

A close up of the beautiful figures in the officers area, 

a couple of dispatch riders chat to an MP.

Loading the ambulance. Are those the dead on

stretchers at rear, respectfully covered?

The beautifully built destroyed farm.

Damn those reflections!

----------

NOTES:

[1] It's from this same Latin term for 'bundle of sticks' that we also ultimately derive the word fascist.

[2] Thanks to Robin Buckland and Military Modelling for permission to use these pics (and one or two helpful pieces of information about the content of some of them as well!).

[3] Destinations in current 'research' itinerary: Waterloo (Ligny, Quatre Bras, etc.), Smolensk, Maloyaroslavets, most of Austria... and now New Zealand, so see the Peter Jackson / Perry Twins Chunuk Bair diorama!