Having seen "633 Squadron" 100 times, in the theater, on television and on DVD(No exaggeration) , and having recently seen "Mosquito Squaron" on televison (on the "THiS" cable channel), I would tend to agree with your analysis. I watched both films, and the comparisons and contrasts are quite remarkable. "633 Squadron" is a much better film; cinematography, acting and storyline are better by far.
shareCompletely agree-what a horrible mess of a film!.. No wonder McCullum looked so glum throughout... He must have known he was making a real turkey-I don't know whether his taciturnity is supposed to represent the fighting man's general hatred of war, his reluctance to send men to (almost) certain death, or the impossibility of the mission, but the whole attitude comes across as farcical. His truculence would never have been tolerated by his superior officers, let alone his outbursts. Guy Gibson got away with it because he was already an air ace, and a far superior ranking officer...The whole thing has the cheap feel of a TV movie about it!.. The producers have simply lifted an assortment of ideas from various other infinitely better made (and far more successful) films, capitalizing on the demand for war films at the time- the whole opening sequence is lifted straight from Operation Crossbow:
1. The bouncing bomb/difficult target concept from The Dambusters (Barnes Wallis never invented a bomb to bounce on land-the 'Highball' was a smaller version of the bombs used in Operation Chastise, the destruction of the German dams.
2. The idea of bombing a POW camp so that prisoners might escape is lifted straight from Operation Jericho-the attack on Amiens, which was widely regarded as a farcical idea that should never have got off paper, and was a disaster, as most of the escaping POWs were either killed outright by the bombing, or recaptured.
3. The love interest between Munroe and Scott is from Appointment in London.
...The haircuts were all wrong, the dress and even the language was all wrong- there are simply too many other anachronisms to mention-see the goofs page (although I particularly liked the Sherman tank dressed up as a Panzer-far too tall & narrow, even to inexperienced eyes, and a Swastika plastered all over it, just to hammer home it was a German tank)... Altogether, one to miss!..
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe...
I would agree with much of what you say but 'Highball' was theoretically capable of being used against tunnels and was considered for the task.The monochrome footage of a Highball bouncing on land which appears in the film is genuine wartime footage.
The tank which appears at the end of the film is not a Sherman but a Stuart tank which has been modified with a larger gun barrel.
Well spotted!.. It just goes to show how little attention I was paying to details at this point of the film-it doesn't look remotely like a 'Ronson'!..
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe...
The bouncing bomb/difficult target concept from The Dambusters (Barnes Wallis never invented a bomb to bounce on land-the 'Highball' was a smaller version of the bombs used in Operation Chastise, the destruction of the German dams.
I must admit, I was quite amused at the thought of dropping the Highball on land and rolling it into tunnels, what a joke! I was amazed, therefore, to read 'Most Secret Squadron' by Des Curtis, a history of 618 Squadron, RAF, which was formed at the same time as 617 with the purpose of using Highball against German warships. One of the things 618 Squadron trained in was dropping Highball on land to roll into tunnels!! They never did it in action, but apparently it was possible.
This is considerably better than the wretched 633 Squadron.
share