First, I must state that I was quite disappointed by the comment by a poster stating that the "lack of Americans saving the day" was the reason for so many low votes. That is ignorance to the highest degree. Winning WWII was a group effort with supreme contributions from many countries.I enjoyed what I saw, I thought the score was exceptional! While I am not a fan of current-day CGI-enhanced movies, the special effects, even for a 1964 movie, were below standard. It appeared to be a very low-budget film.It was a great story and one I would like to learn more about. Cliff Robertson put in his normal quality performance. And, how can you not like a movie with Angus Lennie! VNG

I saw this on its release and remembered only a few of its features. Let's see. I remembered Ron Goodwin's stirring martial score, Maria Perschy's slightly unorthodox beauty, George Chakiris's Hollywood hair do and no-can-do performance, and, most of all, the sleek and noisy power of the half-dozen or so De Havilland Mosquitoes sailing through the fossate Fjords of Norway to bomb hell out of the plant making fuel for Nazi V-1 rockets.Cliff Robertson is the squadron CO and gives a professional performance. Most of the other faces are familiar from British films of the times, as is the make up of the squadron itself. Robertson is an American, and there are New Zealanders, Australians, Norwegians, and a bearded and beturbaned Sikh.Chakiris is the Norwegian liaison officer with the squadron. Perschy is his sister. When Chakiris returns to Norway to organize a resistance effort against the German flak guns surrounding the fuel plant, he's captured and tortured by the Gestapo. Robertson puts an end to his pain by demolishing Gestapo headquarters and Chakiris along with it.This mission -- along with the final suicide run against the plant -- are likely to strike some viewers as coming directly from a comic book, yet Mosquitoes were used more than once for just such precision bombing. They were queer airplanes. There was nothing quite like them. Rather than metal, they were built of plywood and fabric and on many missions went unarmed because their top speed was enough for them to outfly most pursuers.Yet the flight scenes, which should be exhilarating, are flawed because of the obvious model work. When an airplane explodes, it pops into fragments that look like cardboard. And the scenes in the cockpit showing the pilot and navigator are static and give a distinct impression that we're looking at a mock up. Oh, it's not Plan Nine From Outer Space, but it's noticeable and tends to spoil our involvement in events.The director is Walter Grauman. The screenplay is by Howard Koch and James Clavell, both famous names. No one would argue that the plot is logically worked out. The bombing of Gestapo headquarters is from "13 Rue Madeleine." The pilots drinking beer and carousing in the Black Swan is spavined. Robertson and Perschy fall into each other's arms on the first date. We never discover how the Germans learned that the Norwegian resistance planned to attack the anti-aircraft gun emplacements at a particular time. Every one of the Mosquitoes is lost on the final mission and the best the Wing Commander, Harry Andrews, can come up with is, "You can't kill a squadron." (Oh, no?) On the whole it resembles a cross between "The Dam Busters" and "The Guns of Navarone" without the gloss of either. Still, there are few dull moments and the thing zips along with plenty of zest. And those Mosquitoes -- stunning airplanes for their time, versatile and with a maximum speed of more than 370 miles per hour. Admirable in every way except for that nugatory romance.

The watery fjords surrounding the coast of Norway are so encrusted with towering mountains and majestic cliffs that the Germans in World War II found them an excellent place to secretly build launching pads for their new rockets. That then becomes the target area of this motion picture's story. Perhaps one of the most daring flying groups of the British Air Force was the infamous "633 Squadron." Cliff Robertson plays Wing Cmdr. Roy Grant an excellent combat pilot and flight leader of the elite squadron is chosen to seek out and destroy the well protected laboratory. Located in a nearly inaccessible seaside location, the Germans believe the allies cannot harm it because it's protected by coastal guns and a gigantic boulder. That's where George Chakiris playing Lt. Erik Bergman of the Norwegian underground comes in and explains the rock is also their Achilles heel. He has volunteered to show Grant where and how to destroy the lab. Harry Andrews is Air Vice Marshal Davis who explains to Grant the lab must be destroyed at all costs and minces few words to describe the nearly suicidal mission Grant must succeed in. With fine acting by Donald Houston, Michael Goodliffe and Angus Lennie (the 'mole' from Great Escape) this dramatic story is a remarkable tribute to all the courageous fliers of the squadron. Good entertainment. ****

The theme tune from Ron Goodwin is possibly more memorable than the film itself, however it is a very watchable Second World War action drama film. Basically 633 Squadron have enjoyed a string of successful missions, and their latest assignment is to bomb a German rocket fuel plant in Norway, guarded by heavy anti-aircraft defences, and considered bomb proof. The only way the plant can be destroyed is by blowing the mountain above and creating a rock fall, and it is up to Wing Cmdr. Roy Grant (Spider-Man's Cliff Robertson) along with all other Squadron planes to carry this out. The rest of the film, besides the moments with flying planes and explosions has a little love story with Grant and Hilde Bergman (Maria Perschy), sister of Lt. Erik Bergman (George Chakiris), who was held hostage and tortured for answers by the Germans. Also starring Harry Andrews as Air Vice Marshal Davis, Donald Houston as Group Capt. Don Barrett, Michael Goodliffe as Squadron Leader Frank Adams, John Meillon as Flight Lt. Gillibrand, John Bonney as Flight Lt. Scott, Angus Lennie as Flying Officer Hoppy Hopkinson, Scott Finch as Flying Officer Bissell, Julian Sherrier as Flight Lt. Singh, Suzan Farmer as WAAF Sgt. Mary Blake/Bissell, John Church as Flying Officer Evans and Coronation Street's Johnny Briggs (aka Mike Baldwin) as Lt. Jones. The plane sequences are all fun to watch, Robertson makes quite a good leading man, and of course the theme music is always great to hear, a good film. It was number 45 on The 100 Greatest War Films. Good!