Movie Review: '633 Squadron'




Pros: Nice aerial photography, some exciting action scenes
Cons: Predictable, full of war movie cliches
It is spring, 1944.

World War II is entering its fifth year. Although the Allies have driven Hitler’s armies from North Africa, Sicily, and parts of Italy, most of Europe is still under German control. In the Eastern Front, the Red Army is massing for a summer offensive that will follow the long-promised cross-Channel invasion of France, which is scheduled for late spring.

Meanwhile, Allied intelligence has discovered the nature of mysterious concrete-and-metal installations being built by the Germans in northern France, Belgium, and Holland: they are launch pads for Hitler’s V-2 rockets, the “wonder weapons” that, if deployed in time, could wreak destruction on England and jeopardize the D-Day landings.

The Allies’ only hope is to destroy the Germans’ rocket-fuel plants in occupied Norway, and for this mission the Royal Air Force’s high command requires the services of 633 Squadron, a crack unit of De Haviland Mosquito bombers trained specifically for pinpoint bombing missions. Led by Wing Commander Roy Grant (Cliff Robertson), a veteran of the Eagle Squadron, the RAF’s U.S. contingent, this Commonwealth outfit will be working closely with the Norwegian resistance or Linge to attack and destroy the factory before the rocket fuel can be shipped to Western Europe from Scandinavia.

633 Squadron, directed by Walter E. Grauman and written by James Clavell and Howard Koch, is a slightly above-average war film that boasts excellent aerial photography and solid (but not outstanding) performances from its mostly male cast. Based on the novel by Frederick E. Smith, the film tries to be both a crowd-pleasing action-adventure while at the same time exploring some of the “war is hell” ideas that began to seep into World War II movies in the 1960s.

Like so many films that tell the story of a do-or-die mission that can alter the course of a war, 633 Squadron’s seemingly simple mission – destroy a factory – is made extremely difficult by the screenwriters’ imagination. The German rocket fuel factory not only lies at the end of a narrow, flak-battery lined fjord north of Bergen, but (yikes!) it’s also bombproof. The only way to destroy it, Grant is told, is to bomb part of a nearby mountain with special bombs and create an avalanche that will bury the whole installation.

The whole plan, of course, relies on split-second timing and the suppression of the German flak batteries by the Linge. To ensure this, Lt. Bergman (George Chakiris of West Side Story fame) first makes his way to England to help brief Grant about the target area, then is airdropped back to Norway to coordinate the ground attack on the flak batteries.

Meanwhile, the squadron, in typical war movie cliche fashion, goes through the usual train-like-hell-for-a-hush-hush-mission routine during the day, then do the whole party-like-there’s-no-tomorrow-and-chase-women bit at night. And because the target has to be approached in a specific manner at a certain airspeed, some of the magnificent pilots in their mostly plywood Mosquitoes do crash and die. There are the usual tame-now-but-bawdy-for-their-time come-ons by pilots to the local barmaid, and the viewer knows, if he or she has seen movies of the genre before, that the pilot who gets married to a lovely WAAF will not have a happy ending.

633 Squadron’s big on-screen romance between Grant and Bergman’s younger sister Hilde (Maria Perschy) is also predictable and intended to soften the Robertson character’s cynical outer shell. Sure, it’s really nice to see a bit of romance in an action-adventure movie – and Robertson’s scenes with Perschy do give us insights into Grant’s back story – but at the same time it feels, well, formulaic and a bit predictable.

In some ways, Robertson’s Roy Grant is the prototype for George Lucas’ Han Solo, a crack pilot who flies as though he was born with a joystick in his hands and good at what he does, but without Lt. Bergman’s belief in the anti-Hitler cause. Like Harrison Ford’s character in Star Wars, Grant goes from having a “this is just a job” attitude to a “we have to do this even if it kills us” stalwart leader even when things go from bad to worse.

Even though the story of 633 Squadron is pure fiction, it is loosely based on actual events, particularly a Mosquito attack on a Gestapo prison in Copenhagen in 1944. A similar event takes place here, but it has been fictionalized and made a bit more melodramatic for the film.

Although some of the special effects in the climactic battle look hokey as all get-out, 633 Squadron does have what Variety’s critic hailed as “some of the most rip-roaring aerial action photography ever recorded.” There are quite a few real Mosquitoes and vintage planes in this 1964 Mirisch Corporation production, and most of the air action avoids the use of models except when planes crash into mountains or are shot down by flak or enemy planes.

Composer Ron Goodwin’s score is suitably rousing but hardly memorable, consisting mainly of a main theme that appears constantly during flying scenes.

All in all, 633 Squadron isn't a terribly bad film; it doesn't bore the audience and at least attempts to defy some of Hollywood's war movie conventions. However, it's not a masterpiece of the genre; just good enough to kill 95 minutes worth of time, but certainly not in the same lofty range of Saving Private Ryan or even Memphis Belle 

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