Michael Anderson's The Dam Busters (1955) was, for many Americans (including a young George Lucas), the quintessential postwar British war movie -- it was not only a decent sized box office hit at the time of its release but, as a result of its 102 minute US running time, the movie was perfect for two-hour time-slots on American television once it was licensed for broadcast at the start of the 1960's; and with Michael Redgrave and Richard Todd in the leading roles, it had enough star power to qualify as a major motion picture in those days. The movie, a cold, cool, but dramatically satisfying re-enactment of the May 1943 Royal Air Force mission to cripple German industry by destroying the Ruhr Valley dams, never made it to laserdisc on either side of the Atlantic, and has scarcely been seen on channels other than American Movie Classics and The History Channel, so this release marks its first wide availability on home video and also the first wide distribution in the US of the full-length British cut, all 125 minutes of it. In the process, we get the complete vision of director Anderson (who spent two years researching this project before he began shooting), including his reverence -- in good, respectable dramatic terms -- for the applied science involved in the mission, and also for the two men at its core. When we first glimpse Richard Todd as Guy Gibson, the move of the camera shows just how much reverence he was held in as a war hero (lost on a subsequent mission) at the time, and Todd does a masterful job of humanizing a legend. Basil Sydney does similarly well by his portrayal of Air Chief Marshal Arthur Harris, but the dramatic core of the movie -- beyond the mission itself -- lies with Redgrave as Dr. Barnes Wallis, who devised the bombs that breached the dams. The movie itself looks and sounds glorious -- there is one moment about 32 minute in when we get signs of some frame repair, but otherwise this is note perfect. The quality of the film-to-video transfer is such that the super-imposed special effects in the bombing scene now really show their age, but other aspects of the special effect hold up surprisingly well. Additionally, those watching the climactic raid can be forgiven if it reminds them of a more recent genre movie -- George Lucas has admitted that he was heavily influenced by The Dam Busters (one of his favorite movies) in devising the attack on the Death Star in the denouement of Star Wars. The 20 chapters are well chosen in terms of breaking the movie down dramatically. The disc opens automatically on a simple menu with the "play" option in the default position. There are no other special features, but the movie is pretty special by itself.
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