Dad's Movies: "The Battle of Britain" (1969)

Still plugging away at this long list of old movies.

This time I watched The Battle of Britain (1969).

It's easy to see why my Dad enjoyed this one. This is one of those big-budget spectacles with a lot of star power. Check the link; it's an impressive cast, even if some of the actors have little to do.

The production was made by the same people behind the James Bond movies (and directed by Guy Hamilton who did Goldfinger). The production definitely puts its money into the effects (I'm sure the cast didn't come cheap either) as there are a ton of vintage WW2 aircraft in the film.

And that is the main reason to watch this movie:  the battle scenes are impressive. It's just plain fun to see all of that hardware being used in a film. There are some models and other "cheats" but a lot of it is real. The characters are rather thinly developed and the one subplot involving an romantic relationship could have been dropped with little consequence,

Dad surely liked seeing the planes (he worked at a P-51 factory during the war) and, well, so did I. If that aspect doesn't appeal to you, I'd give this one a pass.