633 Squadron

Fall in for the blood pumping joy of De Havilland's Mosquitoes.

A WW2 squadron of Mosquito bombers are training for a perilous mission to bomb a cliff face in Norway; with the aim to bring the cliff tumbling down on the German arms factory below it.

633 Squadron may not be a film for the War enthusiast purists? But the work done here to make this film a winner should never be understated. In this day and age it's often forgotten how these type of film's relied on good aerial photography, deft model work, and a stirring score. All of which this picture contains, thus making 633 Squadron more than a wet day crowd pleaser. Sure the intermittent scenes between the training sequences and the actual mission are mere filler, and the subplo...

We probably ought to bear in mind that this film was designed for success at the American box office, so there is quite a lot of theatrical licence taken with this telling of the story of an RAF squadron tasked with the destruction of a Nazi rocket fuel factory built deep into a Norwegian mountainside. George Chakiris (not too long after his success in "West Side Story") and Cliff Robertson take the lead in this quite stilted, but well made wartime drama. The aerial photography is good, but for 1964, not that good and the characters are a little too stereotyped to be treated very seriously. A journeyman cast offers some support, but frankly, aside from a memorable score from Ron Goodwin, this is a disappointing effort.