633 Squadron
633 Squadron is a 1964 war film directed by Walter Grauman and starring Cliff Robertson, George Chakiris, and Maria Perschy. The plot, which involves the exploits of a fictional World War II British bomber squadron, was based on the 1956 novel of the same name by former Royal Air Force officer Frederick E. Smith, which itself drew on several real RAF operations. The film was produced by Cecil F. Ford for the second film of Mirisch Productions UK subsidiary Mirisch Films for United Artists. 633 Squadron was the first aviation film to be shot in colour and Panavision widescreen.[3][4]
633 Squadron
After the Norwegian resistance leader Royal Norwegian Navy Lieutenant Erik Bergman travels to Great Britain to report the location of a German V-2 rocket fuel plant, the Royal Air Force's No. 633 Squadron is assigned to destroy it. The squadron is led by Wing Commander Roy Grant, a former Eagle Squadron pilot (an American serving in the RAF before the US entered the war).
The plant is in a seemingly impregnable location beneath an overhanging cliff at the end of a long, narrow fjord lined with numerous anti-aircraft guns. The only way to destroy the plant is by bombing the cliff until it collapses and buries the facility, a job for 633 Squadron's fast and manoeuvrable de Havilland Mosquitos. The squadron trains in Scotland, where there are narrow glens similar to the fjord. There, Grant is introduced to Bergman's sister, Hilde. They are attracted to each other, despite Grant's aversion to wartime relationships.
Still worried, Air Vice-Marshal Davis decides to move up the attack to the next day. The resistance fighters are ambushed and killed, leaving the defences intact. Although Grant is given the option of aborting, he decides to press on. The factory is destroyed at the cost of the entire squadron, though a few crews are able to ditch in the fjord. Grant crash-lands but a local man helps Grant's navigator, Flight Lieutenant Hoppy Hopkinson, pull the wounded wing commander from the burning wreckage. Back in Britain, Davis tells a fellow officer who is aghast at the losses, "You can't kill a squadron".
The film and the novel on which it was based follow the same basic plot, but many details were changed for the film. Some scenes were re-arranged in sequence and the story was heavily condensed with most of the characters' backgrounds not mentioned.[22] The first half of the book sees the squadron equipped with Douglas Boston light bombers before converting to the Mosquito. An early coastal shipping strike sequence was omitted for the film, as was an action packed reconnaissance mission. The film adapts only the second half of the novel.[23]
At the end of the film, it is unclear whether Grant survives the mission or not. However, in the book Grenville does survive but becomes a prisoner of war. In the novel, much more time was devoted to the personal lives of the squadron's personnel than in the film.[25]
A multinational Allied war effort is depicted: in addition to an American central character, the film features members of the Norwegian resistance, airmen from India, New Zealand, and Australia. This reflects three historical facts: first, airmen of many nationalities joined the RAF proper; second, under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, airmen from Commonwealth air forces were frequently assigned to RAF units and; third, many squadrons belonging to Commonwealth air forces, or European governments-in-exile were under the operational control of the RAF during the war.[27]
The film draws from many of the real operations of 617 Squadron, in particular their attack on the German battleship Tirpitz in a Norwegian fjord, although that squadron used four-engined Avro Lancaster heavy bombers to carry the Barnes Wallis designed, 5.35-ton Tallboy earthquake bombs, not the twin-engined de Havilland Mosquitos depicted. However, the Mosquito was used by 618 Squadron in connection with another of Barnes Wallis' "bouncing bombs", called Highball. Though Highball was never used operationally, 618 Squadron was used as a special operations unit and is, probably, the closest match to "633".
The "jeep" partly hidden behind a bush in one of the Scottish Highlands training sequences is a post-war Land Rover, and the "German halftrack" is an Alvis Saracen. Land Rovers are seen in backgrounds of other scenes, such as when Grant is being driven from the airfield to be given the squadron's new assignment.[30] The towing tractor seen on the airfield in the early part of the film is a Fordson E1A Major first produced in 1952.
The film's climax shows the squadron flying through a deep fjord while being fired on by anti-aircraft guns. George Lucas stated that this sequence inspired the "trench run" sequence in Star Wars.[34] Lucas intercut sequences into Star Wars during post-production as a guide.
Actually 633 Squadron has more in common with another WWII classic, The Dam Busters. Indeed Walter Grauman's film is determined to replicate the beats of that stirring, daring tale of RAF derring do, but to do them with the determined intention of being much, much bigger. As a result, it's a bombastic movie that lacks the tense subtlety and focus of Michael Anderson's superior film, and feels more like a series of action setpieces searching for a plot. Despite the utterly commendable decision to forego the stereotypical 'chocks away' depiction of a fighter-bomber squadron to feature instead commonwealth and volunteer fliers of American, Australian and Indian nationality, the characters are a little one dimensional, sacrificed at the alter of action to such a degree that you would be forgiven for thinking you're watching Thunderbirds puppets instead of real-live actors. Of course, it doesn't help that some of these performers are miscast and wooden anyway - hello George Chakiris, the Greek-American star of West Side Story cast here as an unlikely Norwegian Resistance fighter thanks to his contract with Mirisch.
633 Squadron is a 1964 WWII film based on a true story of a DeHavilland Mosquito fighter bomber squadron assigned to a "do or die" mission. When Allied forces learn of a Nazi plan to launch rockets at England prior to D-Day, the 633 Squadron is assigned to destroy the rocket fuel plant to eliminate the threat. Cliff Robertson stars as Wing Commander Roy Grant, the squadron leader as they fly into the Norwegian fjord and into history. Director Walter Grauman would later utilize footage from this film for his 1970 WWII thriller The Last Escape.
633 Squadron is one of Ron Goodwin's finest war scores, with a magnificent "chattering brass" theme that captures the exultation of flight. (Goodwin ingeniously composed the theme to reflect the "633" of the title, with alternating bars of six and three beats.) The film stars Cliff Robertson as the leader of a squadron of Mosquito bombers, with George Chakiris his comrade operating behind enemy lines. Goodwin's score is full of action and triumph, as well as a love theme for the film's romantic subplot.
A skilled R.A.F. pilot attempts to lead his squadron on a mission deep into the fjords of Norway in search of a Nazi fuel plant. Robertson tries hard, as always, but is really not British officer material. Well-made war flick, based on a true story. 102m/C VHS, DVD . Cliff Robertson, George Chakiris, Maria Perschy, Harry Andrews; D: Walter Grauman; W: James Clavell.
We were, after all, raised on a diet of films and television programmes which propagated a positive - not to say idyllic - vision of what happened to this country between 1939 and 1945. My favourite film as a school boy was called 633 Squadron, about a squadron of Mosquito pilots. Such films - The Dambusters was another, The Great Escape still another - deftly updated the haircuts and uniforms of the stars who appeared in them to ensure that the glamour of war never quite dated. (Those produced in Hollywood in the 1960s were especially shameless in this regard.) Shot through an even more rose-tinted lens, of course, were the BBC situation comedies set in the war: It Ain't 'Alf 'Ot Mum, 'Allo, 'Allo and, above all, Dad's Army. 041b061a72