Sunday, 27 January 2013

Coming down to earth


The Big Lift (1950)

Directed by George Seaton this film stars Montgomery Clift, Paul Douglas and a host of military personnel playing themselves. In 1948 the Soviets blockade Berlin, the Americans and British attempt to keep the city supplied by air lift.

Despite this obviously being a propaganda piece the plot of this film eventually takes some interesting turns, especially when exploring the experiences of post war Germans and American attitudes to them. It does take a long while for the film to really get going but it works pretty well despite having very few professional actors on the cast. There are plenty of good sequences showing the conditions faces by pilots and the film does a good job of explaining the radar assisted landing systems used.

4/5

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