One can take proverbial potshots (like the Germans at the Mosquito bombers flying at zero feet) at David McCallum for what people have described as his wooden, deadpan portrayal of Squadron Leader Quint Monroe, who appears relatively unemotional when reporting the "death in action" of his previous commanding officer, "Scotty" (David Buck), to his superior officer.

However, that would be an unfair criticism of McCallum: it would be unrealistic if he were to portray Monroe in a way that suggested that he had to adopt a certain persona just to please the audience (or the studio people) by playing a given stereotype. RAF fighter pilots were, in the eyes of the public, supposed to be suave and debonair, yet, as this film and "Battle of Britain" prove, they were ordinary people doing extraordinarily stressful jobs in extraordinary times. Hence, their emotions should reflect the environment of the characters the actors portray.

The most convincing portrayal is that of Charles Gray as the air commodore who tells Monroe to "chuck a bomb" in a tunnel next to a commandered French chateau in order to destroy V-3s (as they were referred to) being constructed in an underground chamber. My favourite line in the movie was when Monroe gave his reaction to the difficulty of the mission at the briefing: "[It's] like spitting into an air commodore's eye from an express train, sir." People who watched "Crossbow" will remember that there was, indeed, a vast studio set resembling such a chamber, yet no such thing is seen in this movie, so, although there was no copying here, it is nevertheless a disappointment.

Having said that, perhaps the budget was somewhat tight, considering that it costs money to have preserved Mosquito bombers (or anything of WWII vintage) flying in movies, and so the cheapest solution for the scene, in which Monroe (McCallum) and Scotty's widow (Suzanne Neve) are in a car, is to have McCallum barely budge the steering wheel while Neve's hair is hardly ruffled while their car is in front of a screen showing a winding road probably filmed from the back of a lorry (one wonders if the camera actually fell off it!).

The most tension-filled scenes are the ones filmed in the chateau grounds where the priest, an intelligence agent, informs the RAF prisoners being used as human shields that Mosquitoes will conduct a bombing raid soon. The prisoners include the supposedly "dead" Scott, only Monroe knows he is alive because of a film "sent" by Luftwaffe fighters which shoot up the airfield (in this case, RAF Bovington) for good measure. Even so, he has orders to obey: destroy the rockets - even if it means that "Scotty" - and a great many fellow comrades - might be killed for real this time around.

Like practically all British war films of the 1960s, one can be sure that there will be certain elements: a romance that doesn't quite work well, a war mission with lots of people being killed, the mission finally succeeding and (with the exception of "633 Squadron", perhaps) most, if not all, of the heroes returning home. This film has all these elements, yet it has been knocked - perhaps unfairly - by many people for the so-called "wooden" acting. Nevertheless, it is entertaining and watchable, even if it isn't in the same league as "633 Squadron" and "Battle of Britain".


War is hell...yawn   October 14, 2003
 4 out of 5 found this review helpful

Somewhere, buried beneath it all, is a pretty decent little film. David McCallum does his brooding thing as he angsts about starting a relationship with the wife of his recently killed best friend. Ok, so the romance is bland and a little too soft focus, but it skirts with some interesting psychology, only to chicken out and skim over the surface, trading it in for some bog standard action scenes. McCallum is lovely, grave and tragic, and there are some excellent scenes where he struggles to relate his duty as an officer with his devotion to his friend and lover. Frustrating, but more than worth a look.