Les briseurs de barrages

I plowed through the most recent 5 user reviews of this movie, burrowing past the recitations of historical minutiae and the quibbles about its 50 year old (un)special effects, and thought to myself that everyone missed the point.

Yes, the effects are crude -- the film was made in 19-fricking-54, people! Yes, it gets some of the historical details wrong -- it's entertainment, people! The real point is that it's a fantastic yarn, told with great skill and excitement. When I first saw it (as a teen, before Star Wars) I was glued to the screen. I still am today. And evidently, I'm not alone because in 1977 a certain geeky film maker from Northern California stole a large portion of Dam Busters, mixed in a heapin' helpin' of Hidden Fortress, and peppered it all with a dash of Laurel & Hardy & Flash Gordon, calling it Star Wars.

So I'm giving props where props are due. Don't miss this classic.

It appears that the attack sequences in The Dam Busters were the direct inspiration for the attack on the Death Star in the first Star Wars film. Some of the dialogue is word-for-word, and it is very interesting to watch these two films back to back.

Also, in the original edit of the film, the dog's name (a black labrador) was a historically accurate but socially unacceptable "Nigger". One edit changed the spoken word to "Trigger," while another release cut all scenes with the offending word. This was unfortunate, because parts of the plot became unintelligible -- the dog's name was one of the code-words used during the attack.

By God, this is as definitive as a war film gets. It's on every year, and is as much a part of Christmas as getting drunk and Monopoly. Everyone in this Sceptred isle knows the theme to Dam Busters, and it causes more people to stand up and salute than God Save The Queen. It has moustachioed R.A.F boys, politely bespectacled scientists, laughable special effects, and an entirely predictable ending. It's a British institution, and I don't know where we'd be without it. You can keep your devolution and your New Labour, I've got Dam Busters and I'm not bloody budging.

A very well made film, with a good script, actors and supporting cast. The film recreates the technical problems of the bombs development and squadron training. However, being made so soon after the raid the film ignores the relative lack of impact of the raid on German war production. However, the bravery of the air crews is very well portrayed. Guy Gibson, who was killed later in the war, won a Victoria Cross for his part in the raid and his leadership.

Many comments have been made about the brilliantly understated performances of Richard Todd (Guy Gibson, the RAF bombing expert who leads the raid) and Michael Redgrave (Barnes Wallis, the inventor whose vision propels the project and makes Gibson his disciple in it).

But one major theme is that of fighting a bureaucracy to fulfil a vision of how to do its work better than the ways it demands everybody use. This goes beyond a single wartime incident to give an inspiring portrait of individual talent and vision.

British wartime films are associated with "everyone pulling together in our darkest hour", but here we see those in authority as the villains (note that the Germans don't appear).

Consider the "last supper" scene before the raid. The airmen are sitting eating bacon and eggs, the last meal before bomber crews went out on a raid, many of them to die. The squadron paymaster strides up to the counter:

-bacon and eggs, please.

Woman behind counter, with strained respectfulness: are you flying tonight, sir?

• don't be stupid, woman. You know I'm the man who pays you every Thursday.

• your toast is on the table, sir.

The dinner lady understands the unwritten rule that the only men who get the traditional full English breakfast are those who might be dead a few hours later, and she rightly puts petty administrators in a completely different category, even if she has to call them 'sir'.

On the way to his plane, a pilot checks his mailbox. "Mess bill", he comments. "I can leave that till tomorrow". I think he's one of the ones who doesn't come back. A well placed line.

After the raid, Wallis meets Gibson coming off his plane, and asks him how it went. As he reels off the list of crews lost, he sees the astonishment creeping over Wallis, who suddenly realises that his obsession's fulfilment has cost the lives of so many of the young men he has been working with. Gibson's job is to deal death and receive it, and he must sooth the academic who suddenly realises what war involves:

• Wallis, you've been worrying more than any of us. Why don't you go to the doc and get some of his sleeping tablets?

• but .. what about you, Gibbo? Hadn't you better get some sleep as well?

[silence]

• Not now .. I've got some letters to write.

And as the credits roll, we see them walking away separately, Gibson to write letters to the families of 56 of his fellow airmen now presumed dead.

I don't want to neglect mentioning those who died horribly under the bombs, whose deaths are covered by triumphal scenes of the flooding after the raid. But the film itself deals with the effects war brings on a tightly-observed and well-played group of individuals, and shows these more cleverly than its modest reputation deserves.

*NB I can't vouchsafe the dialogue I've quoted, but it's pretty much what they say.