The Lion Has Wings

This is by no means a good movie but it does have substantial curiosity value being the first British movie to be wholly completed after the start of the Second World War .It was completed in 5 weeks and released to cinemas in November 1939 . Costing just £ 30,000 it was financed by its producer ,the renowned Alexander Korda , cashing in his life insurance policy and is a flag waving slice of patriotism aimed at stiffening British resolve in the early days of the war .It was shot in 12 days and is a curious hybrid of a picture .

It opens with an illustrated lecture ,delivered by the newsreel commentator ,E V H Emmett charting the rise of Nazism and contrasting the militaristic stance of Germany with the more sporting and pacifist pursuits of the British .This is simple stuff but true -and those morons carping at action in Iraq would be well advised to study this period of history to learn (always assuming their blinkered minds are capable of learning ) what appeasement leads to .

It makes copious use of footage from the Elizabethan themed Fire Over England ,with Flora Robson as Queen Bess rallying the troops before they sailed out to deal with the Spanish Armada . Its main theme is the contrast between militarism and the virtues it deems England stands for -virtues articulated by Merle Oberon in a scene with Ralph Richardson " We must keep our land ,darling ..we must keep our freedom .We must fight for the things we believe in ...Truth and Beauty ..and Kindness "

One especially compelling piece of documentary footage contrasts the bombastic Nuremeberg rallies with shots of the shy and diffident King George at a Boy Scout rally singing "Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree"

The staged scenes of the attack on the Kiel canal are a bit phoney but overall the movie does a neat job of pointing out the contrast between militarism and democracy

The emphasis is too socially restricted with scenes of English life being confined to suburbia and the landed gentry but as a social document this has value .As a movie drama it is negligible

Michael Powell was in the middle of production of The Thief of Bagdad when war broke out between England and Germany upon Hitler's invasion of Poland. Falling back on an agreement with the government, producer Alexander Korda gave whatever resources he could to the British government to help the war effort and moved the production to Hollywood. That left Powell in England to make this, The Lion Has Wings, a propaganda piece of which he made, maybe, 15% of the final product. The rest is made up of footage shot by Brian Hurst, Adrian Brunel, and Korda himself mixed with a large dose of footage acquired from the British government and newsreels. The final product is a quick and dirty little bit of "pick me up" for the masses in the earliest days of the war. It would be interesting to match this up with John Boorman's Hope and Glory as well as William Wyler's Mrs. Miniver to get overlapping looks at the start of the global conflict from the British homefront perspective.

Anyway, the first half hour is essentially one long newsreel, describing the differences in culture between Britain (peace-loving, congenial, almost classless, and free-wheeling) and that of Germany (autocratic, stiff, warlike), leading up to Hitler's provocations across the European continent that led to the Polish invasion, and finally a look at British Spitfire and bomber production. Occasionally, we get glimpses of Wing Commander Richardson (Ralph Richardson) and his wife (Merle Oberon) as he goes off to help at central air command and prepare for the first of Germany's air raids against the British mainland.

The footage shot by each director is reportedly this: Hurst directed everything with Richardson, Powell directed everything in planes, and Brunel shot the crisis section (though, I'm not entirely sure what that is). There's footage from Triumph of the Will as well as a segment from the film Fire Over England showing Queen Elizabeth (Flora Robson) giving speeches in her armor in the face of the Spanish Armada, drawing a parallel between the British responses then and contemporaneously. It seems a bit hoary, but I think it kind of works.

And that's largely my response to it all: it's a bit hoary, but it kind of works. It's unabashedly propaganda to the point where the only way to make it moreso would be to have the narrator (E. V. H. Emmett) outright call it so. However, it's actually got something like a dramatic structure. The scenes are mostly decently well done. The stuff with Richardson ranges from obvious (everything with his wife) to borderline ridiculous (the entire section dealing with the three German bombing runs, including a command center that makes no sense). However, it's Powell's stuff in the planes that works the best. They're about professional men doing a professional job in a dangerous environment (it's almost Hawksian), but there's no time for bits of personal story from any of them. It's just down and dirty men on a mission stuff.

And, because this is propaganda, the British win everything. I mean, everything. The British bombing run Kiel Canal goes off flawlessly, sinking a bunch of battleships without losing a single plane. The counterattack from Germany gets brushed away with the well-trained British pilots easily taking out the bombers, leaving no one on the ground to be hurt. In fact, the final scene is between Richardson and Oberon where Oberon, in nurse's dress, talks about how she has so little to do in her official capacity, a reality that would starkly change with the beginning of the German Blitz. It reminds me of how Hawks' own Air Force had to end with a great victory even if the story didn't call for it.

So, it's propaganda, but it's decent propaganda. The look at wartime production is interesting. The "story" beats are fine and function decently enough. The overview of how Britain is preparing defenses including explanations for barrage balloons is interesting and informative (the people of the nation should know why large inflatable blimps are hanging by steel cables from their major cities, for sure). I've seen far worse propaganda, but it's also obvious that the needs of propaganda and the needs for drama are pretty much completely diametrically opposed. They clash. It's possible to lessen the clash, but the clash will be there, nonetheless.

I rate THE LION HAS WINGS (1939) a 7/10 on the strength of the fascinating documentary footage that makes up much of the first half of the film. (The scenes involving the actors are considerably less fascinating.)

THE LION HAS WINGS is a British propaganda film that seeks to stir up support for the war effort by appealing to a sense of British pride, with particular focus on Britain's air supremacy in its war with Germany.

The early portion of the film uses documentary footage to paint a picture of idyllic British life, in sharp contrast to the military state being run by Adolf Hitler. Hitler, surrounded by a sea of guards, is contrasted with Great Britain's King George VI, who walks openly among his people. The film succeeds in demonizing Hitler as an unscrupulous leader with an outdated hunger for conquest. The film even makes use of archival footage of one of Hitler's early speeches as it drives home the point that he's broken lots of promises by annexing neighboring lands. Excerpts are highlighted from "Mein Kampf" outlining the true ambitions of a man who does not want peace (at least until Germany rules Europe).

The movie is very interesting from a historical standpoint. It covers recent events in world history and also offers a look at British society in the 1930s, touching upon things like sports and recreation, hospital care, and housing improvements. There's footage from an air show, demonstrating the talents of British flyers, as well as some really cool looks at airplane and ammunition manufacture and the "balloon barrage" defense against air strikes. In addition to the archival footage of Hitler and King George VI, we get to hear British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's radio address informing the British people that war is declared. With the narrator guiding you along, the movie is quite educational.

The actors take over around the halfway point and the film becomes more of a dramatization of bombing raids abroad and the RAF's defense of the homeland. This may have been just the thing to arouse patriotism at the time, but it's rather hum-drum now. These dangerous and exciting missions have been brought to life much better in other films.

The main players are Ralph Richardson and the always lovely Merle Oberon, as a young couple who answer the call when their country needs them. What story is there is no great shakes, but it serves its purpose within the film. There are others in the cast, though most of the parts are minor. Flora Robson has a cameo as Queen Elizabeth I in a scene about England's defense against the Spanish Armada (a scene borrowed from the 1937 film FIRE OVER ENGLAND).

THE LION HAS WINGS ties England's proud naval heritage with Britain's more recent mastery of flight, comparing the ace pilots of the RAF with Sir Francis Drake and the other great English seamen. And the film makes it very clear that Great Britain had no choice but to go to war with Hitler's Germany, after repeated offenses on the continent and no effort to discuss a peaceful settlement. As the narrator puts it, the British people prefer to win sports matches, but they can win wars, too, if they must. It's also stressed that the highly skilled airmen of the RAF bomb only strategic military targets, not cities full of innocent civilians (another dig at the evil dictator).

Released at a time when Great Britain had just entered what would become World War II, THE LION HAS WINGS makes sure the British people know what they're fighting for and appeals to their nationalistic pride to win support for what may have been, at the time, an unpopular war.

The Korda brothers,although expatriate Hungarians, made some of the finest British films in the thirties and forties. They managed to create films that reflected the contemporary cultural ethos (including the imperialist ethos) that the country's political establishment wanted, and it comes as no surprise that their first film after the outbreak of the Second World War should be a patriotic morale booster. Indeed, this was the first film made in Britain about the conflict that had just started.

This film was made in a great hurry, and it shows. A large part of it consists of re-used peacetime newsreel film with a special commentary. This sounds pretty dire, but some of the cutting is interesting - contrasting a Nuremburg Rally with a race meeting, and Nazi speakers with Prince Monolulu (a well known tipster)yelling "I've got a horse."

Other parts are sections from different films. Scenes from 'Fire Over England' (with Flora Robson) compares the Nazi threat with the Spanish Armada. Other footage is from a pre-war instructional film about air raid precautions, in which a mock air raid takes place.

The actors are almost superfluous, and you wonder what they are doing there. One assumes that they were thrown in as a way of appealing to the ordinary cinema audience, who might otherwise have stayed away from a totally non-fiction film.

However, it is the aviation scenes that are the main attraction. Some of them are bizarre. At this stage, there was no footage of German aircraft available, so dog fights were recreated using shots of British aircraft (including some obsolete types), and a repeated shot of a Focke Wolf airliner (!) taking off. (At least it had German markings and looked like a bomber!).

The best shots were taken at an airfield housing a Spitfire squadron. Whilst there, the film crew accidently recorded the return of a group of bombers from a raid on warships near the Kiel Canal (the first R.A.F. raid of the war, and a major headline event at the time).

Two points. Although radar had already come into use, this could not be shown. Thus, the Spitfires are scrambled on the basis of information from a spy, corroborated by sound detectors and the naked eye. And, at one point, the German bombing force are foiled by a balloon barrage!

One can understand why Alexander Korda and his entourage interrupted their work on the marvellous fantasy film "Thief of Bagdad" to construct this patriotic, morale-boosting quickie, "The Lion Has Wings." It's somewhat amusing to see the lovely June Duprez still with her 'vulcan' pointed eyebrows (to make her look more exotic for her princess role in "Thief of Bagdad"). Ralph Richardson and several other officers from "The Four Feathers" are also on hand here, but in then-contemporary uniforms. This is not an 'art' film by any stretch, but it fulfills its purpose and is certainly of interest to anyone who has seen the other two films (aforementioned) as a minor footnote.