Damn, Buster

I queued up The Dam Busters (1955) mainly because I vaguely remembered a ska version of the theme song. It's a pretty good theme played straight too. 

It starts in England 1942 with Michael Redgrave with bleached white hair and round Leslie Howard glasses. He's playing in his back garden, skipping marbles off a tub of water, over a clothesline and onto a table. His children are measuring the landing point. His wife has called a doctor on a pretext, to get him to check out Redgraves for exhaustion (and/or madness). But he isn't crazy, he's working on a new weapon for the war, which he can't explain. He just needs a little money for research.

At the Vickers plant where he works, he gets a little money, and we see him running experiments with bigger marbles, and tiny dams. You see, German steel manufacture is concentrated in the Ruhr Valley, and depends on the water from three dams. But they are so big and strongly constructed, it would take an enormous bomb to break them - greater than anything an airplane could carry. The dams are protected from the surface by booms, and below by torpedo nets.

Here I got the idea that this was a mad scientist story. Redgrave would work obsessively on his invention, destroying his health and family, to achieve an end that will kill millions in terrible floods. There was a warning that the film contained offensive material that is no longer acceptable. But that really isn't it. We see him running tests, making calculations, and facing resistance from the bureaucracy. But his results convince them, and his plan is put into action.

The plan is to skip a bomb across the surface, over the booms and nets, and then let it gently roll down, exploding in contact with the dam. It's just crazy enough to work.

The next act concentrates on Michael Todd, the wing commander who will select and train the bomber crews to deliver these bombs. Todd also has a sweet big black dog named Nipper or Knicker (I firmly believe). He gets his crews together, and they begin training, as methodical and careful as Redgraves.

Finally, the bombing run. This is a beautiful sequence, combining aerial photography, night shooting, and miniatures. It's a success - and we don't worry about how many Germans are killed, They manage to kill eight bombers worth of British.

This is an interesting movie in a lot of ways. For one thing, it's based on a true story. Redgrave's look is based on the actual inventor. Also, the methodical way an idea is tested, calculated, tested again, and so forth has a kind of anti-dramatic drama. There's a lot of stiff upper lip to the acting - there are a lot of Leslie Howard accents as well as his glasses. And the final bombing run was a lovely set piece for this kind of action.

So we liked it a lot. But in the end, I think Guns of Navarone makes a better ska tune.