One of Our Aircraft Is Missing!

The older I get the more I enjoy Powell/Pressburger films. There is an arresting nobility to the characters in this propaganda film that strikes home. Among others it features Eric Portman, Godfrey Tearle, Alec Cunes, Hugh Burden, a very young Peter Ustinov as a Catholic priest, Robert Helpmann as the supercilious quisling De Jong, and three strong, heroic women: Pamela Brown, Joyce Redman, Googie Withers. Call them, I guess, The Greatest She Generation.

If you haven't seen it, watch it. If you have, then watch it again.

RAF aircraft crashes over Holland and the story develops as the Dutch aid the crew in getting back to England. This Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger 1942 gave the public insights into the challenges faced by RAF crews shot down in missions over the Netherlands. The film's story was appealing to a viewing public concerned about fathers, brothers and sons serving in the armed forces. Among the more interesting parts is the "dance" that the crew and the Dutch do to determine whether the others can be trusted. As the Dutch resistance aid the men, very challenges are faced and overcome with ingenuity.The Dutch are depicted as generous in supplying food but one has to wonder if there were actually food shortages during the occupation. Surely they shared food with rescued teams but I suspect that they were not offered the kind of bounty depicted in the film.Emeric Pressburger was the screenwriter and is noted for his collaboration with Michael Powell. Their collaborative efforts is known as The Archers. In addition to writing Pressburger, a Hungarian Jew who fled the continent to avoid capture by the Nazis, also handled many responsibilities that a producer would have handled and helped in editing and the selection of the score. Perhaps the best known collaboration of Powell and Pressburger was the 19th Parallel (141) for which they received an Academy Award. The 49th Parallel (released in the U. S. as The Invaders) was the story of a WW2 U-boat crew stranded in northern Canada. To avoid internment, they must make their way to the border and get into the still-neutral USA.Both One of Our Aircraft Is Missing and 49th Parallel are essentially propaganda pieces while providing stories that would please the public. Aircraft is an interesting piece but today's viewer can't really feel the danger of the risks faced by the crew or the Resistance.

Terrific little WWII era film about British airmen shot down over Nazi-occupied Holland and trying to make their way back to England. Very suspenseful. I appreciated that it avoided the usual cliche of having one of the men fall in love with a local girl. Also includes an early appearance by Peter Ustinov, only 21 years old at the time.

I enjoyed this film. It is a thriller of English pilots who fall in Nazi-occupied Holland after their plane is struck down by the Nazis. The story shows how the Dutch Resistance helps these British pilots escape the Nazi-occupied territory. While celebrating the heroics of the Dutch Resistance and the British soldiers, the film avoids the usual cliches often associated with these kind of films. Absence of blind gung-hoism, it remains a great story of people struggling for their freedom in the worst of times, and I think it is a pity that this film has not received the treatment of other Powell and Pressburger films. Perhaps for this reason I give the film 4 stars. In spite the fact that this film is in desperate need for restoration, the images and the audio are good enough to enjoy the story. Films reproduced by Alpha, although lacking the visual and audio quality of a Criterion treatment or of other major distributors, still delivers a product that is, at least, satisfactory and enjoyable if a good story is what I'm looking for. I hope some day it gets better treatment. I love anything done by Powell and Pressburger.

This is a great movie and when I saw that I could purchase it on DVD I jumped at the chance. I was so looking forward to watching this movie again when I inserted the DVD and was absolutely furious when I saw the quality of this recording. It looked like some VHS tapes I bought years ago which were dubbed so many times the picture was blurry and the clarity was awful. I've seen this movie on TCM and know there is a clear sharp video with proper contrast. I was so disappointed but decided to watch the DVD anyway until I saw that Alpha Home Entertainment put their business watermark on the upper right of the screen and it didn't go away. I have NEVER bought a movie or TV series with such a watermark advertisement like you see on cable channels - at least they are usually fairly small and unintrusive - this one is huge and totally detracts from the picture . Between the extra large logo and the extremely poor quality of the video I had to pitch the DVD.I have bought over 100 movies and TV series through Amazon and never had anything this close to this poor of quality. I think Amazon should pull this from their site or place a warning that the quality is poor. I own the Wagon Train series and there are a few episodes that are close to this quality but the DVD states on the outside and before the video starts that the audio and video is subpar for our expectations today. However, it is only a couple of episodes and I knew it when I purchased the video.I don't care if it is a bargain price ($5.99) trust me it is not worth purchasing this DVD even if you're a HUGE WWII film buff like me.The movie itself is a 4 star movie in my opinion and very entertaining. It is clearly a wartime propaganda film but if taken in the proper perspective these are very entertaining and enjoyable. I would highly recommend the movie just not this company's product.

Seen this film many times but always wanted to own it. It is a great picture about airmen who escaped their burning aeroplane in WW2 and parachuted into occupied Holland. They were found by children who took them to their village to be interrogated by the schoolmistress there, had to be sure they were not spies working for the Nazis. They fed them then passed on village by village close to the sea. The Dutch were often shot when they were found out. At last they reached the sea and were hidden by a lady pretending to be a Nazi sympathizer. They safely returned by a rowing boat then were picked up by the British. Plenty of humour in the story and brilliant cast too.

This is a super film, straight from the stable of the indomitable Powell & Pressburger (for whom I have a particular penchant). The movie is delightfully understated, yet offers subtle (& poignant) elements to a simple narrative of servicemen in the last World War; it cannot be overstated however, the crucial bravery & efforts of those individuals who similarly, risked their lives in assisting allied service personnel to return home. Ultimately, this particular genre of film may not hold widespread appeal, but the performances of the actors involved, were solid, well contrived, & wholly believable. I should say, this is an American import, & as such, unless you possess a multi-region DVD/Blu ray player, it won't work. This is clarified in the product information, so do be aware.

Following in the wake of the previous year's highly acclaimed 49th Parallel, this 1942 follow-up wartime tale by master film-makers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (The Archers) is another engaging (and rather original) piece of story-telling. As the film title clearly signals, here we follow the attempts of six RAF airmen as they try to navigate their way out of the occupied Netherlands following the ditching of their Wellington bomber (code-named B for Bertie), it having been hit by German flak following a bombing raid over Stuttgart. Although, for me, the film is not in the same league as their later masterworks (Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, Colonel Blimp, etc), particularly from a visual perspective, it is still an absorbing work, featuring some spectacular black-and-white photography (particularly the air- and sea-borne footage) by Ronald Neame, and including a witty and perceptive script from the duo (for which they received an Oscar nomination - incredibly the only Oscar nomination that Powell ever received).What, for me, OOOAIM showcases most effectively is the period camaraderie and banter between the six shot down crew members. In particular, each of Godfrey Tearle's aristocratic, gunner Sir George Corbett (the film's ultimate hero), and Hugh Burden and Bernard Miles' equally well-spoken gunner Geoff Hickman and pilot John Haggard (respectively) provide a nice contrast with Frank Shelley's more down to earth Welshman and navigator, Hugh Williams, and Eric Portman's dour Yorkshireman and co-pilot, Tom Earnshaw, (despite being a Halifax-born man, Portman, if anything, here slightly overdoes his 'whippet-breeding credentials'). Their pre-bombing mission banter (very much of the 'cabbage crates' and 'old man' this and 'old man' that-type) then takes a back seat as tensions mount during the impressive bombing scenes and subsequently when, on gathering together in the Dutch countryside, they are initially at a loss as to how to organise themselves. Following some initial suspicions, the five crew members (one having gone missing) are taken in by the locals, initially led by a typically seductive Pamela Brown as school teacher Els Meertens, following which they being to plan their escape route back to Blighty.The film-makers strike an effective balance between having their (often British-born) Dutch characters speaking Dutch before lapsing into (pigeon) English to convey important plot points. In addition to the always reliable Brown, Peter Ustinov makes a solid film debut as a priest, whilst each of Robert Helpmann as the blustering Dutch collaborator De Jong, and Googie Withers as the calm, determined, feigning collaborator, Jo De Vries ('These Dutch girls are wizard'), who latterly helps the reunited six in their escape attempt, are outstanding. Although, it could be argued, the film meanders a little in its middle third, the sense of tension is palpable during the final boat-truck-boat flight, as the two sets of allies seek to defy their Nazi adversaries.As with most films of this period and on this subject, there are elements of (perhaps now dated) jingoism in the dialogue, but this does not, for me, overly detract from what is another skilfully made and engaging Archers film.

I bought this DVD following purchase of a box set of other Powell-Pressburger movies. I was so impressed with them, that I started to seek out others.`One of Our Aircraft Is Missing' was one of their earliest collaborations (1942), and features some other famous names in the list of technical crew, such as editor David Lean and DoP Ronald Neame. The opening shots show plane flying with no crew, like an aerial Marie Celeste, and one wonders whether this was suggested to Powell and Pressburger by David Lean.We then cut for the next twenty minutes to seeing an aircrew engaging in what was presumably a very realistic night bombing raid over Stuttgart. On the plane's return over Germany one of the engines gets knocked out, and the aircrew have to jump out over Holland ...In fact the whole film has an air of realism despite the odd speech for wartime propaganda purposes. The only criticism I can make is that the night scenes at the film's end were clearly shot in the day.The film is also famous for being the first full feature in which Peter Ustinov appeared. He plays a Dutch priest, and even then had the power to use his face to say more than words can, especially when the Germans enter during the church service.Alas, my copy has no extras.

A classic, filmed in wartime using a wartime crew, most of whom died within the year. A tribute to the enormous effort by Bomber Command over the entire duration of the war, to maintain the initiative in at least one theatre of operations. Many people do not realize this, but the bomber offensive cost about 57,000 casualties, the population of a medium town, and the chances of surviving a tour of operations unscathed was about 1 in 4. It is more fashionable to criticize the bombing of civilians, and to overlook Warsaw, Rotterdam, The Blitz and the ultimate terror weapons, the impossibly inaccurate V-weapons.This short film brings into the equation the humanity, dedication, discipline and courage of those involved.