The First of the Few

The film tells R. J. Mitchell's story. Mitchell designs aircraft; in the early thirties he travels to Germany, and what he sees there convinces him a war is coming. Starting from the seaplanes he drew for speed races, he designs a fast single-wing fighter: the Spitfire. While doing it he falls ill, the doctors tell him to rest, and he does not stop. He finishes the aircraft and dies in 1937, years before Britain is defended in the air by it. Leslie Howard directs the British film; a hundred and eighteen minutes. Howard himself plays Mitchell and David Niven plays the test pilot. It was made in 1942, with the war still going on, and William Walton wrote the score. A year later Howard was killed when the airliner he was travelling in was shot down.