"One of Our Aircraft is Missing" was the fourth collaboration between Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and the first film to use their trademark "The Archers" designation. Like their previous film "49th Parallel" it is a wartime propaganda film about a group of servicemen stranded in enemy territory and trying to escape, but reverses its plot. "49th Parallel" was about a group of Germans marooned in Canada and trying to escape to the then-neutral United States. "One of Our Aircraft is Missing" is about a group of British airmen (the crew of an RAF Vickers Wellington bomber) stranded in the German-occupied Netherlands and trying to get back to England. (The title derives from a standard phrase used by the BBC and the Ministry of Information when an aircraft failed to return from a mission).
Like "The Day Will Dawn", set in Norway, the film was made to draw attention to the plight of European countries occupied by the Nazis and to the role of the Resistance movements in those countries. The British bomber crew, forced to bale out when their aircraft is hit by enemy fire, are reliant upon the Dutch Resistance to help them escape. The film places great stress upon symbols of Dutch patriotism such as the "Wilhelmus", their national anthem, and pictures of their Royal Family. The film ends with the words "Nederland zal herrijzen!" ("The Netherlands shall rise again!") on the screen.
I would not rank the film as highly as "49th Parallel", which was given extra dramatic force by the tensions which arise between the "good" (i.e. anti-Nazi) and "bad" Germans and by the ironic ending in which the Nazi commander, who thinks that he has reached sanctuary on American soil, is returned to Canada by a twist of fate. The various British airmen, by contrast, are not really differentiated except at a superficial level; they are all what in the slang of the period would have been referred to as "jolly good eggs", united by their belief in the Allied cause and their sense of comradeship. Unusually Pressburger, who generally acted as the Archers' scriptwriter, did not include any "good Germans" in this film; the Germans we see are generally a faceless enemy, although we are left in no doubt as to their capacity for brutality or as to the treachery of the Dutch Quislings who collaborate with them.
I would, however, rank the film higher than something like "The Day Will Dawn" which was a slapdash film, made on a small budget, and it shows. It also suffers from a tendency to try and score propaganda points at every opportunity, even when this is to the detriment of the story. Powell, however, who generally acted as the Archer's director, handles his material well, producing a tense, gripping adventure story. "One of Our Aircraft is Missing" may be propaganda in the sense that it was made with the express purpose of keeping up British morale in wartime, but in the hands of skilled film-makers like the Archers propaganda is not necessarily a bad thing. 7/10
Like "The Day Will Dawn", set in Norway, the film was made to draw attention to the plight of European countries occupied by the Nazis and to the role of the Resistance movements in those countries. The British bomber crew, forced to bale out when their aircraft is hit by enemy fire, are reliant upon the Dutch Resistance to help them escape. The film places great stress upon symbols of Dutch patriotism such as the "Wilhelmus", their national anthem, and pictures of their Royal Family. The film ends with the words "Nederland zal herrijzen!" ("The Netherlands shall rise again!") on the screen.
I would not rank the film as highly as "49th Parallel", which was given extra dramatic force by the tensions which arise between the "good" (i.e. anti-Nazi) and "bad" Germans and by the ironic ending in which the Nazi commander, who thinks that he has reached sanctuary on American soil, is returned to Canada by a twist of fate. The various British airmen, by contrast, are not really differentiated except at a superficial level; they are all what in the slang of the period would have been referred to as "jolly good eggs", united by their belief in the Allied cause and their sense of comradeship. Unusually Pressburger, who generally acted as the Archers' scriptwriter, did not include any "good Germans" in this film; the Germans we see are generally a faceless enemy, although we are left in no doubt as to their capacity for brutality or as to the treachery of the Dutch Quislings who collaborate with them.
I would, however, rank the film higher than something like "The Day Will Dawn" which was a slapdash film, made on a small budget, and it shows. It also suffers from a tendency to try and score propaganda points at every opportunity, even when this is to the detriment of the story. Powell, however, who generally acted as the Archer's director, handles his material well, producing a tense, gripping adventure story. "One of Our Aircraft is Missing" may be propaganda in the sense that it was made with the express purpose of keeping up British morale in wartime, but in the hands of skilled film-makers like the Archers propaganda is not necessarily a bad thing. 7/10