Spitfire

Director: Leslie Howard Leslie Howard

Overview

The First of the Few is a dramatization of the life of R.J. Mitchell, the aeronautical engineer who designed the Spitfire fighter plane, which saved England in the Battle of Britain. Produced, directed by, and starring Leslie Howard, with David Niven as a pilot friend of the engineer, the movie starts with the 1940 Battle of Britain and flashes back, as wing commander Geoffrey Crisp (Niven) recounts his friendship with Mitchell and the years from 1918 to 1937, across which he helped move aviation into the modern age -- starting with racing competitions after the First World War, Mitchell is depicted as a design visionary, perceiving both the possibility and then the desperate need for faster and better aircraft. The latter becomes a matter of national survival, and he sacrifices the last years of his life to perfecting the plane that makes him a legend. As with most biographical films of this era, the picture does take some liberties with fact -- Mitchell did not spend time watching and talking dreamily of birds in flight, and comparing them to the box-like bi-planes of the early 1920s; and he never visited Germany in the early Hitler years and, thus, never heard first-hand hints (or threats) about glider clubs masquerading as training units for military pilots, an event depicted here as his motivation for designing the Spitfire; and the man's own son felt that Robert Donat, rather than Leslie Howard, would have been a more accurate portrayal of Mitchell. But in the main the movie -- which was made with the approval of Mitchell's widow and son, who were present for much of the shooting -- gets the essentials correct, and is surprisingly suspenseful for a bio-pic of this type. As a result of the presence of David Niven in the cast, The First of the Few was picked up for distribution in the US by Samuel Goldwyn, who had Niven under contract, and distributed by RKO in an edited 88 minute version under the title Spitfire, by which it is best known in the United States.

Product Details

Release Date:	07/09/2015
UPC:	0644827152728
Original Release:	1942
Source:	Reel Vault
Language:	English
Sales rank:	18,526

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

David Niven	Geoffrey Crisp
Leslie Howard	Reginald J. Mitchell
Rosamund John	Diana Mitchell
Roland Culver	Commander Bride
David Horne	Mr. Higgins
Anne Firth	Miss Harper
J.H. Roberts	Sir Robert McLean,Sir Robert MacLean
Derrick De Marney	Squadron Leader Jefferson
Rosalyn Boulter	Mabel Lovesay
Herbert Cameron	MacPherson
Gordon McLeod	Major Buchan
George Skillan	Mr. Royce
Erik Freund	Messerschmitt
Fritz Wendhausen	Von Straben,Actor
Victor Beaumont	Von Crantz
Suzanne Clair	Madeleine
Filippo Del Giudice	Bertorelli
Brefni O'Rorke	The Specialist
Gerry Wilmot	Radio Announcer
Jack Peach	Radio Announcer
Robert Beatty	American Airman
Albert Chevalier	Civilian in Control Room
Tonie Bruce	Lady Houston
Adrian Brunel	Actor
George King	Actor
Miles Malleson	Actor
Patricia Medina	Actor
Bernard Miles	Actor
John Stafford	Actor
John Chandos	Kranz
Bunny Currant	Himself
William Walton	Composer

Technical Credits

Henry C. James

Katherine Strueby

Miles Malleson

Anatole de Grunwald

Leslie Howard	Director,Producer
John Stafford	Producer
George King	Producer
Henry C. James	Screenwriter
Katherine Strueby	Screenwriter
Miles Malleson	Screenwriter
Anatole de Grunwald	Screenwriter
W. Percy Day	Special Effects
Adrian Brunel	Producer
John Dennis	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

Leslie Howard's The First of the Few was, like the other projects in his tragically brief career as a director/producer, a film spawned by the exigencies of war. The story of aeronautical engineer R. J. Mitchell and the Spitfire fighter was a natural for a movie, a tale of sacrifice and triumph rivaling that of Lord Nelson that helped decide the fate of a nation -- a fate that had only become clear perhaps a year before this picture went into production. Howard was a natural as a director, and knew how to quietly dominate the screen as an actor, but the presence of David Niven as his pilot friend Geoffrey Crisp and Rosamund John as a fictionalized rendition of Mitchell's wife, prevent this from being a near-solo effort a la Orson Welles's work. They both turn in involved, convincing performances, with John's reaction in particular, in a pivotal scene near the end of the movie, one of the most quietly wrenching emotional moments that one will find in a film of this type and era. Niven's character is actually a composite of two test pilots who were part of Mitchell's circle of friends. There is a certain stiffness to the movie, especially in the early scenes, that modern audiences may find off-putting, although the overall film achieves a bracing level of excitement, helped in no small measure by Sir William Walton's music. The latter, extracted as a concert piece ("The Spitfire Prelude and Fugue") subsequently achieved a long life of its own in the concert hall (and set the stage for what would have been the last film music triumph of Walton's career, his music for the film Battle of Britain a generation later, had the producers of the latter movie not gotten cold feet about its commercial prospects and substituted another score). The movie also achieved some unintended importance in its use of actual wartime aerial combat footage, a portion of which seems to have disappeared from circulation in any other form, and the presence of several celebrated World War II Royal Air Force fighter pilots in the opening and closing sequences.

All Movie Guide - Bruce Eder