La grande aventure

Made by the RAF Film Unit, this is essentially a celebratory film that starts off a bit propagandist in nature but actually turns into quite an enjoyable and characterful wartime story. It centres around "Wilton" (Richard Attenborough - who did actually serve in the Royal Air Force) who joins up intent on being a pilot. He passes through basic training and is sent to Canada where he encounters "Dean" (Edward G. Robinson) whose job it is to teach him to fly a plane. Thing is, he can fly the thing ok - but his landings look like they were designed by Barnes Wallace! "Dean" recommends he switch to navigating, but the young man feels that a demotion, a failure, and so it falls to his colleagues to instil in him the critical value of that role to all aboard. The last half of the film leaves the training behind as he and his crew are involved in a perilous bombing raid over Germany and, somewhat shot-up, have to make their way back home to safety. The film takes it's time to get going, maybe a wee bit too long spent developing the characters - but that does pay off as the denouement approaches and "Wilton" - and the audience - find the values of loyalty and teamwork re-iterated and reinforced. The cast consists plenty of familiar faces including a rare appearance from Bessie Love and they gel well together to deliver a sense of inter-reliability and comradeship. Very much at the better end of these feel-good dramas, this, and well worth a watch.

Journey Together is a film made with a lot of the acting talent that was still in the Royal Air Force in 1945. In that respect it was like the David Niven film The Way Ahead which was done while Niven and the rest of the male members of that cast were still in the service. In this case Richard Attenborough who had made a big impression in a small role in In Which We Serve got to star in this film about a young enlistee in the RAF who wants to be a pilot.

From the days of Eddie Rickenbacker to the days of Tom Cruise in Top Gun the glamor spot in the Air service of any country is being a pilot. You get the commission, the rank, and the best of the female groupies around. Attenborough's no different, but he does not make it as a pilot.

However while training in Arizona he gets to work with instructor Edward G. Robinson who washes him out as a pilot, but says he can make it as a navigator. As Robinson puts it the pilot is just glamorized driver, he was the whole show in those single engine biplanes from World War I, but in this war he's just the head of crew and they all have jobs to do.

Particularly the navigator and Robinson and I agree it takes brains to be a navigator, to read those charts and instruments and plot a right course. He fails, everybody fails.

Attenborough gets a chance in combat to show how important navigators are and what he does is what you see Journey Together for.

The presence of Edward G. Robinson albeit in a small role insured a few more dollars for the American market. But the film is Attenborough's and he does a fine job in the lead. Journey Together is a nicely plotted war film and aviation buffs will love seeing those vintage British airplanes.

This is in many aspects an ideal war film for its consistently documentary and realistic character, showing just how it was to get trained as an Air Force pilot. Not everyone made it, but those who didn't instead got the chance of proving the more indispensable for their supporting effort, in this case Richard Attenborough as the very young and green navigator. Although a documentary film with no real romantic thriller plot but just plain hands-on realism all the way, it is terrific at times and has some memorable scenes worthy of Powell-Pressburger. It was in fact written by Terrence Rattigan and directed by the famous Boulting brothers, who practically only accomplished masterpieces, usually totally realistic ones and not seldom of a documentary character. Besides Richard Attenborough, there is Edward G. Robinson, playing a part of an American instructor voluntarily without being paid, and another very young George Cole is among the crew. In brief, this is a very enjoyable and enriching film for its very positive and edifying character, and the music by Gordon Jacob also adds to its lasting interest and quality. It's a thriller, but it is real.

"That same day [30th August 1944], the RAF Film Unit arrived at Methwold with all of the necessary equipment to shoot the Squadron Lancasters for sequences in a movie titled 'Journey Together'. Great pains were taken to exclude No. 149's Stirlings from any of the shots." From "Strong By Night" History and Memories of No. 149 (East India) Squadron Royal Air Force 1918/19 - 1937/56; John Johnston and Nick Carter; An AIR-Britain Publication.

In one of the external scenes of a Lancaster Squadron Station, there is a fleeting glimpse of a Lancaster in the background sporting the Squadron code letters "OJ" of 149 Squadron. The Squadron had just completed conversion from Stirlings to Lancasters and most of the Stirlings were still at Methwold, hence the comment about excluding them from any of the shots although whether that was at the RAF's or director's insistence is not explained.

Richard Attenborough, Jack Watling, and David Tomlinson are up for training as potential RAF pilots in this movie directed by John Boulting, written by Terrence Rattigan, and financed by the RAF. Only one will get his wings, but the other two will serve.

It's a star-studded international film, with Edward G. Robinson and Bessie Love as a couple in Arizona; Robinson is the instructor whose training will make or break Attenborough and Watling. The story sometimes skirts being purely conventional. However Attenborough is so darned youthful and heartsore that it never ceases to be interesting, and the sequence where the crew has to get out of a downed plane as it sinks into the sea is genuinely frightening.