The Dam Busters (film)
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- This page is about a film. For the event on which it is based see Operation Chastise
The Dam Busters is a 1954 British war film, set during World War II, and documenting the true story of the RAF's 617 Squadron, the development of the "bouncing bomb", and Operation Chastise - the attack on the Ruhr dams in Germany. It stars Michael Redgrave as Barnes Wallis, and Richard Todd as Wing Commander Guy Gibson. The movie was based on the books The Dam Busters by Paul Brickhill and Enemy Coast Ahead by Guy Gibson.
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[edit] The plot
The film falls into two distinct halves. First, Wallis struggles to develop a means of attacking Germany's dams, in the hope of crippling German heavy industry. Working for the Ministry of Aircraft Production, as well as doing his own job at Vickers, he works feverishly to make practical his theory of a bouncing bomb which would skip over the water to avoid protective torpedo nets. When it came into contact with the dam, it would sink before exploding, making it much more destructive. Wallis calculates that the aircraft will have to fly extremely low (60 feet) in order for the bombs to skip over the water correctly. But when he takes his conclusions to the Ministry, he is told that lack of production capacity means they cannot go ahead with his proposals.
Angry and frustrated, Wallis secures an interview with the head of Bomber Command, who at first is reluctant to take the idea seriously. But he is eventually convinced and takes the idea to the Prime Minister, who authorises the project.
Bomber Command forms a special squadron of Lancaster bombers - 617 Squadron - to be commanded by Wing Commander Guy Gibson. He recruits experienced crews, especially those with low flying experience. Whilst they train for the mission, Wallis continues his development of the bomb, but experiences problems. With only a few weeks to go, he succeeds in fixing them and the mission can go ahead.
The bombers attack the dams. Several Lancasters and their crews are lost, but the overall mission succeeds and several dams are breached.
[edit] Filming
The flight sequences of the movie were filmed using real Avro Lancaster bombers supplied by the RAF. The aircraft, four of the final production B.VIIs, had to be taken out of storage and specially modified, and cost £130 per hour to run, which amounted to a tenth of the film's costs. (An American cut was made more dramatic by depicting a plane flying into a hill and exploding. This version used stock Warner Brothers footage of a B-17 Flying Fortress as opposed to a Lancaster.)
The Upper Derwent Valley in Derbyshire, England (the actual test area for the real raids) doubled as the Ruhr valley for the film. The scene where the Dutch coast is crossed was filmed between Boston, Lincolnshire and King's Lynn, and other coastal scenes near Skegness. Some more of the film was shot over Windermere, in the Lake District. The airfield used was RAF Hemswell, a few miles north of RAF Scampton. Hemswell was operational during the war, but not when filming took place.
The film is accurate historically with only a few minor exceptions;
- Barnes Wallis said that he never encountered any opposition from bureaucracy.
- In the film Gibson's tour-expired crew at 106 squadron all volunteer to follow him to his new command. In fact only his Wireless Operator Hutchinson went with Gibson to 617 squadron.
- Crews for the operation were not all personally selected by Gibson as shown in the film; some crews were simply posted straight in.
- Unlike the film, none of the bombers flew into a hillside on the actual raid.
- The film also makes it seem as if the raid is Wallis's idea but the dams had been identified as a target long before the method was devised.
- Gibson did not devise the 'altimeter' using two spot-lights whereas the film shows him inspired by spotlights in a theatre.
- The film was made before some of the details about the bombs used in the attack were declassified (in 1962), and thus is (understandably) somewhat inaccurate about some of the fine points of how the bombs were actually delivered.
- Some of the sequences in the film show Mosquito fighter-bombers dropping a later version of the bouncing bomb, code-named Highball, developed to be used against ships in the Far East. This version of the weapon was never operational.
[edit] The Dam Busters March
Eric Coates's stirring theme, critically and popularly acclaimed, made a tremendous contribution to the film, achieving iconic status. For many, it is synonymous with the film - indeed, with the exploit itself. The Dam Busters March remains a favourite military band item at flypasts in the UK.
The composer's son Austin Coates recounted in a radio interview for the BBC, that the march was not actually written for the film and had in fact been completed a few days before he was contacted by the producers. The composer had apparently being carrying out an exercise in composing a march in Elgarian form, which is the same stucture as the famous Pomp and Circumstance Marches.
Coates had a profound dislike of writing film music and turned down numerous requests; he was prevailed upon by the producers, who told him this was "a film of national importance". He was initially minded to decline the commission, but on hearing more about the film, came to the conclusion that the piece he had just completed might just be the very thing.
The film score itself was completed by Leighton Lucas.
[edit] Influence
The attack on the "Death Star" in the climax of the film Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope is based on the climactic sequence of 'The Dam Busters'. In the later film rebel pilots have to fly through a trench while evading enemy fire and use a single special weapon at a precise distance from the target in order to destroy the entire base with a single explosion; if one run fails another run must be made by a different pilot. Some scenes from the Star Wars climax are very similar to those in The Dam Busters and some of the dialogue is nearly identical in the two films. These scenes are also heavily influenced by the action scenes from the war film 633 Squadron, which depicts a fictional air raid.
The 1982 film The Wall, and the Pink Floyd album upon which it is based, contains scenes from the film, notably that in which Gibson's dog (called 'Nigger') is killed by a car just before the planes take off.
These scenes were cut from ITV's last showing of The Dam Busters after their previous broadcast received complaints for the use of the word nigger. While ITV has been criticised for censoring historical fact, and maligning the impact of a moving cinematic sequence in the process, the edited showing received many fewer complaints than the previous un-edited broadcast.
The Dam Busters has been praised as one of the greatest war films of all time, but also criticised as glorifying war and destruction. The music commissioned for the film, 'The Dam Busters March', by Eric Coates has also remained popular(2). In 2004 the magazine Total Film named The Dam Busters the 43rd greatest British film of all time.
[edit] Production notes
- Richard Todd, who plays Guy Penrose Gibson, took part in the airborne assault on Pegasus Bridge on D-Day.
- The film's theme tune, The Dam Busters' March, by Eric Coates became an instant classic for brass band and can still be heard in football grounds during England Football Team matches. One version released featured dialogue extracts from the movie (the bombing run).
- There were two television advertisements for a brand of beer, Carling Black Label, which played on the theme of The Dam Busters. Both adverts were made before the English football team broke a 35 year losing streak against Germany. The first showed a German guard on top of a dam catching a bouncing bomb as if he were a goalkeeper. The second showed a British tourist throwing a Union Jack towel like a bouncing bomb to reserve a pool side seat before the German tourists could reserve them with their towels. Both actions were followed by the comment "I bet he drinks Carling Black Label"[1].
- Three of the four Lancaster bombers used in the film had also appeared in the Dirk Bogarde film Appointment in London two years earlier. [2]
- This was Patrick McGoohan's feature film debut. He has a brief, non-speaking part as a guard.
- Gibson's dog "Nigger" was dubbed into "Trigger" for the US market. The dog used in filming to play the part of Nigger was also called Nigger.
[edit] Remake
It was reported on 31 August 2006 that Peter Jackson is to produce a remake of The Dam Busters in 2007, along with Sir David Frost as Executive Producer. [3]. Frost had purchased the rights to the book in 2005. Christian Rivers was chosen to direct the film.
