One marks the virtual beginning of the Third Reich and one its virtual end. When Hitler was forced to abandon his plan to invade Britain he concentrated on Russia,thus sowing the seeds of his Country' downfall. And whatever revisionist historians may say,the main reason he did so was the inability of the Luftwaffe to gain air superiority,let alone the air supremacy required for a successful campaign. "The Battle of Britain" recounts the epic air war between Dowding's young pilots and Goering's. It's aerial photography is legendary,some of it shot over Essex where I was lving at the time. The Unit used a Liberator which would swoop low over the fields and we would wave to the pilot as he flew majestically past,followed by a gaggle of Spitfires in "Finger Four" formation. Tragically one of the cameramen was killed when he fell out of the aircraft. Both the Luftwaffe and the RAF are portrayed positively in an era when Germans were often thought of as psychopathic murderers. The actors are secondary to the machinery and tend to soft pedal except Mr R.Shaw who was incapable of keeping his charisma under wraps and the great Mr K.More who plays his usual humane officer role to perfection. There is nothing more than a "For Christ's sake" from Mr Shaw to offend those who are determined to take offence at something and nothing more tittilating than Miss York 's suspenders to tittilate those who are determined to be tittilated. This is as much an historic document as a wart film.

July 1940. France has fallen and Britain braces itself for the inevitable German onslaught. In order to invade Britain, Germany must first gain air superiority. All that stands in its way are the brave few - the fighter pilots of the RAF.Stirring telling of the RAF's finest hour. Great aerial battle scenes and some good insights into the strategic aspect of the conflict. The ebb and flow of the battle is captured well. Good historical accuracy mixed with decent character engagement and side-stories. Certainly does bring home the impact of the war on the average person, the importance of the battle and what a close-run thing it was.All-star cast delivers in spades: Laurence Olivier (as Air Chief Marshall Hugh Dowding), Michael Caine, Christopher Plummer, Trevor Howard, Susanna York, Kenneth More, Harry Andrews, Robert Shaw and Michael Redgrave plus future stars in Ian McShane and Edward Fox.

There not much bad that can be said of all technical aspects involved in making such a film. The props ,costumes ,special effects ,The Planes and the combined lot take center stage in this brilliant UK produced spectacle!! The acting was well done there's zero Poorly spoken lines. Personally this movie was viewed by me twice it seems to follow historical correctness on a whole . I don't know how true all the various personal stories that weave there way throughout the entire movie are . However they are done tastefully and in Actual real life they are plausible . At the end of the movie when the credits are shown on screen the producers added statistics .Very Solemn moment. I don't know how your movie viewing goes , Thats in your hands . Personally I most always view credits from beginning to end .My movie experience becomes more fulfilling .

This is one of my all-time favorite movies, so far as historic war movies go, and that's usually due to it's faithfulness to history.Reading the tidbits I see that they even re-staged actual events from the historic period in the movie, that is attention to detail! There are few errors in the movie, and some are simply due to not having historic aircraft available. The fact that they do have them at all is a thrilling treat for any WWII aviation buff. The Bf-109's look weird with their merlin engines but you get used to them, and it's good enough to have the main airframe in the movie.The various tactics are all very well represented. Perhaps the biggest fault that is not represented is that due to an incredible change in planning and business process redesign, Great Britain actually was out-producing Germany in in industrial production by a factor of 3-1 by the end of the battle. They had more than enough planes, what they lacked was trained pilots. This is represented in the movie (but not the amazing work of Lord Beaverbrook to get production going full steam (his scenes were cut).I was happy to see in Wikki that Air Marshall Dowding is now credited with saving Great Britain by his brilliant decisions just before and during the battle. At the time, Churchill disliked him and he was demoted and sidelined.This is a very good movie to show in a classroom as a very good representation of actual history.