The Times has been trying to stoke up a row over this evening's documentary in the BBC British film season:A BBC series on British cinema which has been criticised for its “sneery” and “witless” commentary is accused of reaching a new low tonight with an insult to the memory of Douglas Bader.
Group Captain Bader performed heroics as a fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain, despite having both his legs amputated after a 1931 flying crash. An instalment of British Film Forever dedicated to war movies discusses Reach for the Sky, the 1956 Bader biopic starring Kenneth More. The voiceover, read by the comedy actress Jessica Hynes, says: “Viewers of this film might’ve thought they were having their legs pulled.”I feared that Matthew Sweet's antipathy to Kenneth More (see the comments on this posting) had got the better of him, but it was a throwaway line I would not have noticed if I had not read the Times report first.
This was one of the better documentaries in that it name-checked all the right films. Each of these documentaries has taken a Whiggish views of British film history, seeing a recent film as a culmination of the whole tradition.
A Bridge Too Far (which is not that recent, come to think of it) hardly justifies that status among war films, but it was not as ridiculous as the earlier programmes which saw all British social realist films as leading to Billy Elliot and (God help us) the Harry Potter films as the highpoint of British horror.
And I could have done without the celebrity talking heads. I am not that interested in what Phil Jupitus or Dan Snow think about anything. There was some nice Britten on the soundtrack though.
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"A Bridge Too Far" was mentioned in the context of more modern war films which in the post 1960's era had a more gory edge and some anti war sentiments. in that context I felt it fitted in well with the documntary and I also like the contempory interviews with Anthony Hopkins and Michael Caine about their take on it.
The pub over in Tangmere*, home of the airfield where Douglas Bader took off on the flight he was shot down over France, is called the Bader Arms. Doubtless the old boys can see the funny side and don't need outrage whipped up on their behalf.
*WWII airfield. Major role in the Battle of Britain and forward operating base of SOE (Violette Szabo** flew from there). Later the
Later the home of Neville Duke's Hawker Hunter.
**British film trivia megamash. Szabo's poem (The life I have is all I have...), as recounted in Carve Her Name with Pride, was actually written by SOE cryptographer Leo Marks who not only grew up at 84 Charing Cross Road but wrote the script for Michael Powell's Peeping Tom. Seek out his obit. It's incredible.
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