Bouncing

The Dam Busters (1955)

Classic British cinema here with a film that tells the story of Operation Chastise, the 1943 RAF raid on key dams in the German industrial heart land of the Ruhr. For the most part the film is factually correct but does suffer slightly from being made at a time when information about the raid was not in the public domain.

The story starts with Barns Wallis and his technical advances required to launch the raid before following the formation of the squadron and it's training before dealing with the raid itself. What the film does well is focus on telling the story of the raid rather than the modern trend of shoe horning in melodramas to historic events. As the film was made shortly after the end of the war there was plenty of planes around to film the air sequences with and the attack on the dams are especially well done, as is the capture of the time the flight crews spending waiting just before the raid is launched.

4/5 a classic that went on to inspire George Lucas when writing Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.