Story of a number of Free French pilots during WW2 fighting in the RAF by mainly flying Spitfires.
Based on the memoirs of Pierre Glostermann, the highest scoring French ace of the 2nd WW, this is a rather bitter account of his time in the RAF. Made so close after the war you'd be expecting some flagwaving French movie with the Marseillaise constantly in the background. There is a bit of that but as the movie progresses it gets more and more depressing. This mainly is due to the fact that about everyone of Pierre's comrades start to die until he is about the only one left of the original bunch. Even the romance with some English girl goes wrong.
All in all not a bad movie even if there is quite a lot of stock footage used for the dogfighting but the surroundings and the Spitfires are quite real. Glostermann himself moved in 1944 to a squadron of Hawker Typhoons as a wingcommander but we do not get to see any of these.
I highly recommend the book as it is indeed a very laconic account of aerial warfare during WW2 and there is hardly any flagwaving about(and respect for the German pilots).
I think this would turn into a great remake as a movie or tv-series for the French especially now with all this CGI available.
Based on the memoirs of Pierre Glostermann, the highest scoring French ace of the 2nd WW, this is a rather bitter account of his time in the RAF. Made so close after the war you'd be expecting some flagwaving French movie with the Marseillaise constantly in the background. There is a bit of that but as the movie progresses it gets more and more depressing. This mainly is due to the fact that about everyone of Pierre's comrades start to die until he is about the only one left of the original bunch. Even the romance with some English girl goes wrong.
All in all not a bad movie even if there is quite a lot of stock footage used for the dogfighting but the surroundings and the Spitfires are quite real. Glostermann himself moved in 1944 to a squadron of Hawker Typhoons as a wingcommander but we do not get to see any of these.
I highly recommend the book as it is indeed a very laconic account of aerial warfare during WW2 and there is hardly any flagwaving about(and respect for the German pilots).
I think this would turn into a great remake as a movie or tv-series for the French especially now with all this CGI available.