Since my new Irvin jacket arrived today, I thought it appropriate that I watch Battle of Britain. (And no, I’m not wearing the jacket!)
Battle of Britain was made in 1969. A year later Tora! Tora! Tora! came out. Both films were set at the beginning of WWII. The Battle of Britain was a campaign, while the attack on Pearl Harbor was an attack. But in both cases, the war was young and its outcome not foreseeable. Both films tell their stories from the point of view of both combatants. Both feature loads of flying!
Watching Tora! Tora! Tora! now. Unlike Battle of Britain, which starts out with a bang, Tora! Tora! Tora! has a slow build-up. ‘Cut to the action’ is often a good way to start a film. But between these two films, I prefer the developing tension of Tora! Tora! Tora! – which gets my vote.
“Battle of Britain” has its moments but feels long. It’s one of the many “Spot The Star” war movies of the period where they fit in a whole slew of famous actors in an effort to Make An Epic, but there’s just too many of them and so it feels more like a jumble of connected scenes, jumping from character to character, than a cohesive movie.
“Tora! Tora! Tora!” is a tight, well told story, and it does service to the importance of the story.
The difference between the two is that “Battle of Britain” actually is about a battle. Unfortunately, it’s a battle that took a few months to complete and so the movie is a hurried effort to explain the entire thing while giving screen time to a bunch of past and future Oscar winners. It’s a simplistic tale, too, with the bad guys being bad, and the good guys having stiff upper lips and tally-ho let’s get the Jerries, old chap, and have a spot of tea after, yed indeedy old chap.
But “Tora! Tora! Tora!” is a story about why a battle was fought. The battle itself isn’t exciting or even necessarily very interesting; it was a one-sided slaughter. What the movie is about is why the two sides found themselves drawn into a war. From the Japanese perspective it’s a tale of the tragic flaws of aggression and pride, as they somehow steer themselves into a battle they’ll win that begins a war many of their own leaders know damn well they’ll lose; they demonstrate remarkable tactical acumen and skill (and unlike a lot of Western movies are never portrayed as being automatons; they’re real people) but lurking in the background is the fact that on a grand scale it was a horrible decision that doomed most of the decent, brave men who carried the attack out with such skill. From the American perspective it’s a sad tale of stupidity and hubris that led to a disaster that didn’t have to happen while Cassandras cried the alarm to no avail. It puts a human face on both sides and portrays both as being hurt by the horrors of war.
Tora! Tora! Tora! is better because it was actually researched and managed to be a pretty good film too. Battle of Britain was an example of how not to write a War Epic.
I think to judge them fairly, we need to do a Micheal Bay remake of Battle of Britain, mix in a bunch of anachronisms and poorly researched bits, and lots of explosions. And a love story that, while central to the movie, is utterly unconnected to the plot.
Just kidding.
Battle of Britain DOES get some bonus points because it has lots of British accents, always fun to listen to.
You know, to judge them fairly, I’d have to watch both of them close to each other! Movie night!
I went with Tora! Tora! Tora!. It seems more realistic to me, although I’m not a serious military history buff. RickJay explained it more clearly. Battle of Britain was just too glossy & star filled; and not Black & White!
One tiny problem with Tora! Tora! Tora!: The women’s costumes & hair styles were all wrong for the period. Of course, women were only marginal characters–but their brief appearances in 1960’s shirtwaists took me right out of the story. A search for Very Young Ian McShane made me realize the other movie made the same mistake. Bouffant hairstyles dated the movie badly–to the wrong date.
(Just quibbles, I know. But both movies made attempts to get the military stuff correct. Couldn’t they have hired somebody to make the women look right?)
My problem with Tora, Tora, Tora, was that the subtitles were in a plain, white font - in front of the Japanese officers wearing white uniforms. Totally unreadable.
I hate to hijack my own thread, but I can’t let this pass. The s/fx were atrocious. George Chakiris was miscast as a Norwegian. The acting was poor. It had glaring technical problems.
First, the s/fx. I tend to give a lot of leeway to s/fx in older films, because of the techniques available at the time. But the way the model Mosquitos were moved on the screen was just bad. When an airplane turns, it’s supposed to bank. The filmmakers turned the planes (I’m talking about the scene where a plane narrowly misses a cliff) as if it were a car. As I said, I do make accommodations for earlier techniques; but this was such a glaring error it really bugs me. But I’d still let them slide if it weren’t for the ‘technical’ problems. By ‘technical’, I mean the way the film was put together. The filmmakers used the same shots over and over. So we’re treated to the bad shot multiple times.
The other ‘technical’ issue is the setups. In particular, I didn’t like the way that they’d do a straight frontal shot of the actors in the cockpits. It’s boring. They did do some off-angles for one-shots, but the two-shots were all the same. Again, I’ll make allowances for heavier gear used at the time that was a pain to set up (even with modern gear, setups often take a very long time) and for the limitations imposed by the geometry of the rear-screen (or possibly front screen) projection. But it comes off as ‘Let’s just keep the same setup and change the actors.’
The flying scenes (with actual aircraft) were spectacular. A Mosquito in motion is a beautiful thing. That alone is enough to put 633 Squadron on my DVD shelf. But the lack of knowledge of how airplanes move, the so-so acting, and the pedestrian setups take it out of the running in this poll (else I would have included it).
I voted for Tora! purely because of the scene where the Japanese ambassador hands the declaration of war to Secretary Hull. Hull’s speech in reaction and the shame-faced way the Japanese guys drags himself out of the room play in my mental theatre all the time, even though I’ve only seen the movie once or twice.
Battle of Britain for me. When it came out I was really into building model airplanes. For some reason I preferred the aircraft and battles from the European Theater. As a kid I loved movies like 633 Squadron, The Dam Busters, Reach For The Sky, and both the film and TV versions of Twelve O’Clock High.
