The Dam Busters **** (1955, Richard Todd, Michael Redgrave, Ursula Jeans) – Classic Movie Review 1857

Director Michael Anderson’s 1954 true life wartime adventure movie brings the once famous story of Barnes Wallis’s bouncing bombs that blasted open Germany’s crucial Ruhr dams in 1943 to vivid life.

At the centre and heart of it, there are excellent, committed star performances from Michael Redgrave as the British inventor Wallis and Richard Todd in one of his warmest portrayals as Wing Commander Guy Gibson, the man who led the bombing mission. The two variable star actors are particularly intense and credible, and unusually engaged with the material and their characters.

R C Sheriff’s taut and tense and sincere screenplay, based on the books by Paul Brickhill and Guy Gibson (Enemy Coast Ahead), surprisingly plays down the heroism involved at the time of natural self-congratulation for the British, and makes it all the more credible and realistic, as well as spending considerable screen time making all the factual background detail fascinating.

Practically every part in the movie is filled with a then famous acting name, including Basil Sydney, Derek Farr, Patrick Barr, Ernest Clark, Raymond Huntley, Ursula Jeans (as Mrs Wallis), Brewster Mason, Nigel Stock, Anthony Doonan, Robert Shaw, John Fraser, George Baker, Bill Kerr, Peter Assinder, Colin Tapley, Richard Leech, Laurence Naismith, Richard Thorp, Ewen Solon. Harold Goodwin, Stanley Van Beers, David Morrell, Ronald Wilson, Brian Nissen, Denys Graham, Basil Appleby, Peter Diamond,  Gerald Harper, Philip Latham, Arthur Howard, Edwin Richfield and Tim Turner. However, I’m guessing that sadly now everybody is struggling to remember a single name on this list. Nevertheless, it’s a fine roll call of Equity’s finest.

The Associated British Picture Corporation studio’s convincing, effective re-creation includes Oscar-nominated special effects, masterminded by George Blackwell. Erwin Hillier’s black and white cinematography and Robert Jones’s production designs are also important contributions to the smart look of the movie.

The Dam Busters triumphed at the cinema as the year’s top money-maker in Britain. There were three Bafta nominations, including Best Film, but surprisingly no wins.

RIP Richard Todd.

Richard Todd died on 3 December 2009, aged 90.

George Baker died on 7 October 2011, aged 80.

Australian actor and comedian Bill Kerr died on August 28 2014 aged 92. He appeared in films such as The Dam Busters and Gallipoli and played Tony Hancock’s good-natured lodger in six series of the wildly popular BBC radio show Hancock’s Half Hour (1954-59).

RIP British director Michael Anderson.

Michael Anderson, the British director who was nominated for an Academy Award for his direction on Around the World in 80 Days (1956), died in Vancouver on 25 April 2018, aged 98. He is fondly remembered for Logan’s Run (1976).

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1857

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com/

RIP George Baker.

Michael Redgrave plays the British inventor Barnes Wallis.