Reach for the Sky

A biographical film set in Britain. Douglas Bader is a young pilot in the air force. He flies well, ignores the rules, and likes being noticed. In 1931 he tries a manoeuvre at low altitude. The aircraft hits the ground. He loses both legs. He makes a decision in hospital. He will walk. Getting up on artificial legs takes months. The narrative holds this section long and hurries nothing. He refuses to use a stick. The service retires him. He is declared unfit to fly. He moves into civilian life. He works a desk at an oil company and is unhappy. Then the war comes. The air force needs pilots. Bader applies and forces his way in. From there the film is a war story. The Battle of Britain, command of a squadron, and the argument about large formations. Bader argues for taking off in big groups. Command debates it and the film gives the matter as a fight about strategy. He is shot down over France in 1941. One of his artificial legs stays in the aircraft. The Germans take him prisoner. He tries repeatedly to escape and is finally sent to Colditz. What the narrative is interested in is not disability but stubbornness: its idea is that the man let nobody pity him, and that he carried this less as a virtue than as almost an illness. Bader is not drawn as likeable. Coarse, impatient and pleased with himself. The source is Paul Brickhill's book. The film was the most watched production in Britain that year. Kenneth More plays the part while holding that balance. Lewis Gilbert directed. Kenneth More, Muriel Pavlow, Lyndon Brook and Alexander Knox are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes 1950s British war films and true stories. Who it is not for: anyone looking for a critical view; the narrative does not question its hero and asks nothing at all about the war itself.