Much of the British wartime propaganda produced by the GPO Unit and then its successor The Crown Film Unit portrayed the British as doughty, courageous victims of German aggression. This film was rather different in concentrating on Bomber Command of sinister memory, which. for all the tea-drinking, pipe-smoking conviviality. would prove the most aggressive part of the British military machine. In 1941, as shown in the film, Bomber Command still concentrated on military targets but would greatly extend its remit from 1942 onwards to engage in more indiscriminate strategic bombing, causing the death of an estimated half a million civilian by the end of the war and being the first, after the US, to introduce the charming novelty of roasting its victims alive with napalm (invented in the US in 1942).
Although this film was awarded an Oscar, it is not one of the Unit's best. While it follows the policy initiated by Brazilian Alberto Cavalcanti (in charge of the GPO Unit and ten the Crown Film Unit after the departure of John Grierson to Canada in 1937) of using non-actors but Cavalcanti left the Unit in 1941 for Ealing Studios (because of its increasingly propagandist slant, he was required to become a British citizen which he refused to do) and the lack of his very special talent (as supervising producer) with sound and the orchestration of dialogue is apparent here. South African born Ian Dalrymple, who took over, was essentially a scriptwriter without the same technical expertise. A companion piece, Coastal Command, directed by Jack Holmes has music by Vaughan-Williams but suffers from similar defects and a rather unfortunate commentary.
A much better film is Watt's 1940 Squadron 992 about a much less well known aspect of the war (the balloon squadrons), quirky and very Scottish with some superb photography (the cinematographer, Jonas Jones, is the same) and a cracking deadpan commentary written by broadcaster Donald McCullough ("a balloon on the ground looks a bit like an elephant that has had bad news").
Although this film was awarded an Oscar, it is not one of the Unit's best. While it follows the policy initiated by Brazilian Alberto Cavalcanti (in charge of the GPO Unit and ten the Crown Film Unit after the departure of John Grierson to Canada in 1937) of using non-actors but Cavalcanti left the Unit in 1941 for Ealing Studios (because of its increasingly propagandist slant, he was required to become a British citizen which he refused to do) and the lack of his very special talent (as supervising producer) with sound and the orchestration of dialogue is apparent here. South African born Ian Dalrymple, who took over, was essentially a scriptwriter without the same technical expertise. A companion piece, Coastal Command, directed by Jack Holmes has music by Vaughan-Williams but suffers from similar defects and a rather unfortunate commentary.
A much better film is Watt's 1940 Squadron 992 about a much less well known aspect of the war (the balloon squadrons), quirky and very Scottish with some superb photography (the cinematographer, Jonas Jones, is the same) and a cracking deadpan commentary written by broadcaster Donald McCullough ("a balloon on the ground looks a bit like an elephant that has had bad news").