One of Our Aircraft Is Missing is a 1942 British film made by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (49th Parallel, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp) that follows the crew of a British bomber who bail out over Holland and try to return to England with the help of the Dutch Underground—nearly everyone in Holland, actually. It follows them in what could be described as a documentary style, except that wouldn’t be giving Powell and Pressburger enough credit.
I chose to review this movie almost entirely because I’m a fan of Thomas Dolby, including but not limited to his song “One of Our Submarines.” This review, however, is a bit of a challenge because I’m ambivalent about the actual film. For a low-budget wartime propaganda film, it’s pretty good. Parts of it are well done and interesting—and there are some cool camera angles. Other parts aren’t interesting or exciting, the film doesn’t look that good, and there are some odd plot jumps. This leaves me unable to recommend this movie—probably. This movie is why reviews should be more than one sentence; you could end up liking this more than I do, and I like it fine, except . . . hmm.
The beginning of the movie is strong. We’re introduced to the flight crew of the plane we can easily guess will soon be missing as they’re having lunch and chatting, but we don’t spend an inordinate amount of time there. We set up who the people are, and then we get on a bomber.
Their flight is well executed and interesting, though some may find it too long.The camera pans around the interior of the bomber, and all the actors give their character’s names and roles on the plane while the actor’s name flashes on the screen. It’s one of the odd interesting things this film does, and it does more than a few.
There may be too much of people in a cockpit with nothing accompanying them except the sound of the engines and idle talking It is like a documentary about being in a bomber, and I mean that in a good way.
Actually dropping the bombs is the most impressive part of the film. I’ve read that the city being bombed was a huge model, but when I first saw it, I thought it was archival footage of an actual bomb run with a few effects added. It is really well done.
Our heroes end up in the Dutch countryside, under constant threat of capture, but they seem to lack any urgency about the whole thing. Maybe it’s an English thing, but they rarely seem all that concerned with their plight. At one point, they are hiding in a room with the Germans one floor below them and they don’t, you know, tread softly or talk quietly or anything like that—instead they listen to an English radio broadcast. They are told the floors are sturdy and not to dance, but seriously, hide a little bit.
There are some moments of tension. They are all in a church when some Germans come in, and we mainly watch the church organist watching the German officer, while we see the officer in a mirror. It’s a well-composed shot in a scene where there is genuine concern that they will be captured. The scene is mainly silent except for the Nazi’s footsteps and the organist occasionally depressing pedals that sound soft chords to distract the Nazi.
The movie has a great many silences because there is no musical score. Sometimes this works well, but there are suspenseful scenes that could have benefited from some tense music—or maybe a tighter frame. Some scenes where you should be worried, you aren’t–you’re a step back.
There are a number of interesting shots where we are looking through bushes or windows at the action. In one scene, the camera looking through some barricades as they pass through a checkpoint allows the Germans to appear as shadowy, menacing figures. Later our heroes board a boat, and the camera is in the boat and bobs up and down. As they depart, we see a brave and valorous and other positive quality possessing Dutch resistance woman slowly recede into the shadows while the boat gently bobs. I really like it—it’s clever; it’s not generic.
However interesting some of the shots are, this is not the best quality film—it’s dark and grainy and the sound is sometimes difficult to hear clearly, and the silences can be interrupted by that popping noise old films can make. It may be my copy or that the film wasn’t well preserved; it may be the movie never looked that good. The British Film Institute’s new version looks substantially better.
The movie contains strong women, which is an interesting facet of some movies made during the war. There’s an acceptance and encouragement of women during the war when the culture needs them to be strong and self sufficient.. The Dutch underground in the movie is almost entirely run by women—the downed flyers mainly interact with them, and it’s kind of fun seeing some British men harrumphing about the competent and brave women bossing them around. but the women aren’t transgressive. The town elder in an early scene, who has the final say, is male.
Men not entirely comfortable with a strong woman speaking to them.
Though the men are put off and then impressed by capable women, one Britisher says, “Our girls would too, if they had the chance.” At one point one of the highly competent and brave Dutch women puts on a dress, has a drink and says, “It’s nice to be a woman again, even for half an hour.” The women are strong, but not so strong as to lose sight of their place once peace comes.
They do, however, consistently appear more competent than the downed pilots, and they are constantly getting the better of Germans or jingoistically explaining why the Germans are inferior.
Well, everyone is constantly getting the better of the Germans (or the Quisling collaborator pigs). Germans are easily and continuously foiled because they hate themselves, one of the brave and brazen resistance women informs us: “They’re an unhappy people. I would rather be a Dutchman in Holland than any German soldier. They want to believe that somebody’s their friend, and that’s the whole trick.” And this is a tricky thing about propaganda: the enemy must be dangerous and yet we must be able to defeat them, and this movie makes the Germans a bit too much of a pushover.
There’s is also an odd jump between two scenes. I literally looked on the Internet to see if my copy was missing a reel. It doesn’t seem so, The BFI version also just jumps–“we’re here now, and those guys over there are here too: deal with it.”
When I first watched this movie the only note I made was “Like a book report of a daring exploit.” Most of the time, I feel a step back from the action. It’s perfectly well done, in parts, and maybe you should see it, but . . . I’m supposed to be firmer than this, right?.
Recommendation
The movie is free on YouTube, and probably other places as well, so totally see it for free, if you are at least a mild enthusiast for the genre. I don’t yet know if you should buy Combat Classics, which has this movie in it, but it was at a good price last time I checked.
The British Film Institute has released a remastered version that looks far better, has a commentary track from an historian and some propaganda shorts. If you are a film or propaganda historian, it’s great–I don’t know if anyone else should buy it. It’s also Region B and won’t play on most US DVD players.
You can buy a Blu ray on Amazon, but I’m not sure it is as high quality as the BFI version, which is also available on Amazon.
Thomas Dolby’s The Golden Age of Wireless, Remastered and Expanded is a masterpiece but was nearly $400 on Amazon when I posted this, which ruined my whole plan to recommend this super cool album with both versions of “Radio Silence” and a bonus live concert DVD. Seriously, don’t buy this, unless you’re. like, rich or something. Seriously, this recommendation is ruined.
You could buy his “best of” CD, or the really good but not expanded reissue of The Golden Age of Wireless, both of which have “One of Our Submarines.” This doesn’t really have that all that much to do with World War II movies, does it?