| Eagles Over London | |
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| Directed by | Enzo G. Castellari |
| Produced by | Edmondo Amati |
| Starring | Frederick Stafford Van Johnson Francisco Rabal Ida Galli Luigi Pistilli |
| Music by | Francesco De Masi |
| Cinematography | Alejandro Ulloa |
| Editing by | Vincenzo Tomassi |
| Release date(s) | 1969 |
| Running time | 104 minutes |
| Country | Italy |
| Language | Italian |
Eagles Over London, also known as Battle Squadron and Battle Command (Italian: La battaglia d'Inghilterra ), is a 1969 Italian "macaroni combat" war film directed by Enzo G. Castellari.[1]
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During World War II at the height of the Battle of Britain, British military officers are in pursuit of a merciless team of Nazi saboteurs. They searched though war-ravaged London but the Nazis eluded them. Finally, the British caught up with the Germans in a final battle at the RAF Control Centre.[1]
When Enzo G. Castellari finished the film Kill Them All and Come Back Alone, he asked the producers what their next film would be. They replied a war epic about the Battle of Britain. Enzo thought that was a great idea but the producers had their sights on Alberto De Martino directing. The producers stipulated that stock footage of the actual Battle of Britain needed to be used in the film and that it should be used in a split-screen method. They asked Enzo if he would direct the special effects sequences and cut it with the stock footage using a split-screen method. Enzo had never heard of "split screen" so he was shown the American films The Thomas Crown Affair and the The Boston Strangler. He shot the effects sequences and mixed it using a triple split screen method. An example is having a British plane shoot on the left side, having a Nazi plane getting hit on the right side, and having stock footage in the middle. When shown this split-screen footage, the producers were so impressed they decided to have Enzo direct the entire picture. After this, Enzo sat down with a writing partner for a week to rewrite the overlong script to make it more action-orientated and less of a "soap opera".[2]
It should be noted[says who?] that the film is entirely fictional and historically inaccurate. For instance, the RAF never shot down 94 German planes in one day; London was never "blitzed" in one sortie by "1,000 planes"; and the RAF Control Centre was never attacked in any way. It is also interesting to note[says who?] that the director uses Me-109s (or near-replicas of them) as RAF "Spitfires", and Spitfires as Luftwaffe "Me-109s". There are also interesting[says who?] fictional "bombers" that are supposed to be He-111s.[3]
Severin released the film for the first time ever in America on Region 0 DVD in 2009.[1] The Film is out on Region 2 on the 11 January.
Roughly thirty percent of the film "Eagles Over London" was cut into the macaroni combat film From Hell to Victory. Enzo said that he and his wife went to go see "From Hell to Victory" in theatres and it made him extremely upset that footage he shot was reused in film.[2]
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