Price: £14.44 - £5.41
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Guy Hamilton’s classic war film looks at how England defended itself from the German aerial onslaught of the summer of 1940. Laurence Olivier plays Sir Hugh Dowding, the air chief marshal whose fleet outmanouevre the Luftwaffe, despite a numerical disadvantage; and those few to whom so many owed so much are portrayed by an all-star cast including Michael Caine, Kenneth More and Ralph Richardson. Despite its pro-British slant, the authenticity of the film’s impressive flying sequences was guaranteed by the technical advice of Adolf Galland, one of the Nazi’s most celebrated World War 2 pilots.
Aspect Ratio : 16:9 – 1.78:1
Is discontinued by manufacturer : No
Product Dimensions : 19 x 13.5 x 1.5 cm; 90 g
Item model number : 1610801054
Director : Guy Hamilton
Media Format : PAL
Run time : 2 hours and 6 minutes
Release date : 23 April 2007
Actors : Laurence Olivier, Robert Shaw, Michael Caine, Susannah York, Christopher Plummer
Studio : 20th Century Fox
Producers : Harry Saltzman, Benjamin Fisz
ASIN : B000M3421I
Writers : James Kennaway, Wilfred Greatorex
Number of discs : 2
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Battle of Britain – Definitive Edition [1969] [DVD]
Original price was: £14.44.£5.41Current price is: £5.41.
Hogo alvis –
Brilliant fast delivery
Great blu ray movie ð¬
Graeme J. W. Smith –
In context – not as flawed as some state
Simply stated:- Crisp colour- The widescreen lets you see the shots as intended and gives even more sweep and scale to the flying shots- the detail is good enough to see the 1969 film grain – in otherwords it is as good as you are going to get.- This DVD with the second disk with REAL extra features is a TERRIFIC improvement over the VHS tape and the US single disc edition.The real Battle was the messy and drawn out affair depicted here and as the film does struggle to pull this together in a truly cohesive manner. For the new viewer you will get far more out of the movie if you read a little of the history first.The Plummer/York personal relationship scenes are criticised by many – but they miss the deeper meaning. Sitting in the background (and briefly introduced in an ops room scene) is a real badly burned Battle of Britain pilot and though the Plummer/York relationship is unevenly presented it is a motif for the real displacement that occured in wartime to personal relationships and the subsequent conflicted feelings felt by York when she learns Plummer has been burned. It is not comfortable and is as much a way of showing the price paid by all in society as the scenes of dead civilians during the bombing.But – these uneven moments aside – want to see what real 1940’s dogfighting was about – this is it. Big name stars portray key characters or composites of real fighter leaders – battling with their problems of leadership, aircraft maintenance and the real shortage – “the few” – the polyglot multinational pilots on the British side – experience getting eroded by constant dog-fights and the inexperienced replacements dying while trying to survive.With no digital effects – real pilots “went up” day after day through the summer of 1968 flying the real stars – the aircraft. Begged borrowed or re-built for the movie – suspend your beliefs regarding certain marks or engine variants – these are real planes recreating real dogfights behind a camera plane. Freeze frame the climactic “Battle in the Air” sequence – count them – I made it over 27 on screen at once – with the others that had just flown off and others that flew in moments later – in 1968 the film makers had the 11th largest airforce in the world!Watch the extra DVD to find out just how many hours flying it took to get just one sequence in the can and the director’s real fear that in pushing the aging and in some cases only just airworthy aircraft into “combat” again – they might inadvertently recreate they type of accidental collision that happend in the real battle. Watch some of the spectacular footage and see how close they really came on occassion.For those who wondered how the British could fire Dowding – architect and leader of their defence immediately after the battle – Olivier’s performance portrays probably the best explanation you will ever get after wading through the history books trying to figure it out.You think Private Ryan and Band of Brothers are good? With modern CGI – sure they are – but after you have suspended special effects belief Battle of Britain does a great job of showing what it was like to fight with your backs to the wall – not “surprised” by what was coming next thanks to radar, but fearing your dwindling pilot resources would leave you “outgunned”.A real tribute to the few, orchestrated by those who were really there and survived. Watch it for them and, more importantly, for those who fell.
buchon –
great great film
I too can not let a viewer get away with their, er, review!The Battle of Britain was, yes, more lost by the Germans than won by the British. It wasnt only bad tactics and bad intel that cost the Germans it was also the fact that their airforce was almost as badly equiped as the RAF in terms of aircraft to complete the job. ME 109s only had enough feul for a ‘short time’ around the British skies, HE 111 were medium bombers that carried nowhere near enough bombs, the JU 87 Stuka was useless when put up against real aircraft and the ME 110s (not mentioned in the film) were so bad they turned and fled as soon as the RAF turned up! The argument that the Hurricane was a better gun platform than the Spit and scored more ‘kills’ is true but at the end of the day both were armed with what amounted to nothing more than 8 rifles while the Gemran fighters had cannons. To bring down any plane an RAF pilot had to be luckier than his German counterpart because of the poor British weapons. Yes poor intel and tactics cost the Germans victory rather than the British winning but thats irrelevant. The film covers this, bad intel on both sides, how German aircraft did the radio announcer announce the RAF had shot down? How many aircraft had the Luftwaffe ‘destroyed on the ground? Not only bad tactics cost the Germans the battle so did inadequate aircraft (although still better than most of what the RAF had). The RAF got lucky but it was the first modern airforce the Luftwaffe had come up against. On a wing and a prayer the RAF won and sent the Germans to their first real defeat (excluding Dunkirk) and it was a defeat that the Lufwaffe in particular never fully recovered from!To the criticisim that the film isnt acurrate ‘cose such aircraft types as the ME 110, DO17, JU88 and the RAF’s Blenhims were missing there are two simple reasons for this. One there were not, and still not that many WW11 aircraft of differnet types around in the 1960s and its a film that lasts a little over two hours! How long did the Battle of Britian last? The film isnt long enough to fit all aircraft types in. But certain reviewers wish to pick at missing aircraft why not go the whole hog and complain about the fact that the the JU87 Stuks were radio controlled models, the ‘ME109’s’ were Spanish built Buchon’s not German built ME 109’s and a some of the Hurircane’s in the Polish ‘shut and be quiet in Polish’ sequence are clearly American built Kuritis Warhawks!! The RAF were also equiped with other aircraft such as Gladiator bi-planes and Bolton-Paul Defiants, why no mention of them in the film!!!??? Lets be fair to all aircraft types that took part in the actual battle but not even thought about in the film!!!!!!!The film is an outstanding piece of cinematic history and could not possible be 100% historically accurate but because of that it doesnt deserve criticism. The film was after all made with both eyes firmly fixed on the big bucks in the Ameircan market and when has the American fill industry ever been truly historically accurate? The film is a fine and memorable tribute to the brave RAF pilots and ground crew, the radar station operators, stations that were almos wiped out in the early stages of the battle, and also to the equally brave German pilots.I highly recomend this film!!!!!
Richard Weldon –
As good as it always has been
One of the best films of all time given a bit of a polish
John Wells –
Historical Drama
Great Watch
Steve McQeen –
Enjoyment
Amazon Customer –
order arrived on time and no damage. One of the best historical movies made about one of the most important events in world war 2. Features some of the greatest British screen stars of the 20th century.
Dolphin –
Sehr informativ. Die Extras sind sehr gut. Was aber nicht gesagt worden ist das viele der Deutsche Flugzeuge sind umgebaut worden mit Merlin Motoren, deshalb diese eigenartigen Merlin Geräusche beim Start der Henkel Maschinen.
Patxi –
Fantastica pelÃcula a una increÃble calidad. Incluye idioma español de españa.
T –
German Luftwaffe air attacks disturbed British Empire during second World War. Various Aircrafts used by British Royal Air Force to protect their air from German invasion are demonstrated in the film. The determination, planningand loyalty of British soldiers are well depicted. Video clarity is excellent but audio is very poor. We can’t expect much audio clarity from a Film released decades ago. This film gives excellent viewing experience. DVD is encoded in Region 3 format hence Region free DVD player would be required to watch it in India.