One of Our Aircraft is Missing

One of Our Aircraft is Missing (The Archers, 1942) As dawn breaks at an RAF base, a squadron of planes comes back from a nighttime bombing run of a Mercedes-Benz plant in Stuttgart. Apparently, the raid has been successful, except for one detail: Wellington bomber "B" for Bertie has not returned. It is presumed lost on the mission, possibly shot down, possibly the crew is lost.

 

One of Our Aircraft is Missing is a British propaganda film with a particular significance. Although it wasn't the first collaboration between director Michael Powell and producer-writer Emeric Pressburger, it is the first of their films that carries their particular partnering label: The Archers. Under that sobriquet, they would go on to produce some of the best British films in the 40's and 50's.

 

But, about that plane. About those pilots.

They were doing alright until they hit the Dutch coast. Leaflets were dropped over Cologne, then they headed to their primary target where they flew through some flak and then got hit, disabling their starboard engine. They navigate for a direct course home, get to Holland, but then the port engine kicks and they decide to bail out, the pilot, Haggard (Hugh Burden), stays with the plane as long as he can to try to guide it to the ground with doing as little damage as possible.

In the morning the crew gather together—the only one missing is Ashley (Emrys Jones) the wireless operator—and decide on their best course of action to get home without being detected by the occupying Germans. They are Haggard, his second pilot Earnshaw (Eric Portman), rear gunner Sir George Corbett (Godfrey Tearle), navigator Shelley (Hugh Williams), and front gunner Hickman (Bernard Miles). Time being of the essence, they do their best to hide their parachutes and set off for the coast following the main rail-line; they hope that they can hook up with Ashley somewhere on the route.

As one of the crew can speak Dutch, an encounter with children (who show off their resistance pins) brings them to the nearest town where the local "schoolmarm" (who can speak English) sequesters them while she gathers the local townspeople to discuss what to do with these "drop-in's." Finally, the teacher named Else Merteens (Pamela Brown) enters the room, suspiciously, and starts to grill them as to their identities and whether they can prove they're an English bomber crew and not some German "plants" trying to test their loyalties.

But, once they've proven their story, the village welcomes with open arms, with a sumptuous meal, offers of civilian clothes, even coordinated efforts to better hide their parachutes and smuggle them to the sea 15 km away. There then begins an elaborate ruse to "blend" the British pilots in with the townspeople to get them closer to the coast and once there, hopefully they can cross the Channel or alert their countrymen to pick them up.

It would seem like a grand spy story if it wasn't filled with quaint touches of the townspeople and their spirit of living under the shadow of the Nazis, feigning obedience with one hand and thumbing their noses with the other. One notable things, besides Powell and Pressburger's work, is the extraordinary cinematography of Ronald Neame (who, himself, would go on to direct such films as The Man Who Never Was, Tunes of Glory, The Horse's Mouth, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and The Poseidon Adventure), which has a good deal of verve to it, and, in latter stages of the film, turns moody and noirish. Also you should look out for the film debut of a skinny young character actor named Peter Ustinov, playing a Dutch priest. And (as if that weren't enough talent in the credits), the film is quite breezily edited by a young fellow named David Lean (who would go on to direct "some" films, himself).