History Film / BattleOfBritain

-->"Move, or I'll force you to swim across the channel!"

-->'''Maggie:''' Don't you yell at me, Mr. Warrick!

The AllStarCast includes Creator/MichaelCaine as Squadron Leader Canfield, Creator/TrevorHoward as Air Vice Marshal Park, Creator/IanMcShane as an RAF pilot named Andy Moore, Creator/LaurenceOlivier as Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding, Creator/ChristopherPlummer as Squadron Leader Colin Harvey, Creator/MichaelRedgrave as Air Vice-Marshal Douglas Evill, Creator/RalphRichardson as Sir David Kelly, Creator/RobertShaw as Squadron Leader Skipper, and Creator/SusannahYork as Section Officer Maggie Harvey.

The AllStarCast includes Creator/MichaelCaine as Squadron Leader Canfield, Creator/TrevorHoward as Air Vice Marshal Park, a young Creator/IanMcShane as an RAF pilot named Andy Moore, Creator/LaurenceOlivier as Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding, Creator/ChristopherPlummer as Squadron Leader Colin Harvey, Creator/MichaelRedgrave as Air Vice-Marshal Douglas Evill, Creator/RalphRichardson as Sir David Kelly, Creator/RobertShaw as Squadron Leader Skipper, and Creator/SusannahYork as Section Officer Maggie Harvey.

[[ShownTheirWork It was a major attempt at historical accuracy]], sourcing a massive number of real planes (100) and costing a great deal of money to make. It still has some inaccuracies, notably using {{Composite Character}}s and over-emphasising the Spitfire's role due to a lack of available Hurricanes. A number of names are also fictionalised.

[[quoteright:320:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/battle_of_britain_320X240_51.jpg]]

[[ShownTheirWork It was a major attempt at accuracy]], sourcing a massive number of real planes (100) and cost a lot of money to make. It still has some inaccuracies, notably using {{Composite Character}}s and over-emphasising the Spitfire's role due to a lack of available Hurricanes. A number of names are also fictionalised.

Has an AllStarCast: Creator/MichaelCaine as Squadron Leader Canfield, Creator/TrevorHoward as Air Vice Marshal Park, a young Creator/IanMcShane as an RAF pilot named Andy, Creator/LaurenceOlivier as Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding, Creator/ChristopherPlummer as Squadron Leader Harvey, and others.

** Early in the film a group of unescorted Heinkels are set upon by Spitfires and without protection from fighter escorts suffer heavy losses without the Spitfires losing any.
** Later the British are on the receiving end when Canfield's squadron is ambushed by Messerschmitt 109s diving from above (a common real-life tactic) while focusing on the bombers; only one is shown to survive.

* CurbStompBattle: Goes both ways. Early in the film a group of unescorted Heinkels are set upon by Spitfires and without protection from fighter escorts suffer heavy losses without the Spitfires losing any. Later the British are on the receiving end when Canfield's squadron is ambushed by Messerschmitt 109s diving from above (a common real-life tactic) while focusing on the bombers; only one is shown to survive.

* CurbStompBattle: Goes both ways. Early in the film a group of unescorted Heinkels are set upon by Spitfires and without protection from fighter escorts suffer heavy losses without the Spitfires suffering any losses. Later the British are on the receiving end when Canfield's squadron is ambushed by Messerschmitt 109s diving from above (a common real-life tactic) while focusing on the bombers; only one is shown to survive.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: This film plays up both the idea that the RAF saved Britain from invasion, and that it was a close-run thing, with the British nearly running out of planes and pilots. In reality, the British were able to maintain a steady roster of pilots and planes throughout the battle. And further, most analysts agree that the Germans never really had a chance to invade England even if they'd destroyed the RAF, because their navy was nowhere near strong enough for the task. (The Kriegsmarine had started out the war already inferior to the Royal Navy, and it got much worse after the Germans took severe naval losses during their conquest of Norway.) If Hitler had tried to invade, he probably would have gotten troops ashore but they would have been cut off after the Royal Navy closed off the Channel.

A 1969 British movie, retelling the story of the [[UsefulNotes/TheHomeFront Battle of Britain]] in 1940.

!!Contains examples of:

* AcePilot: To be expected in a film about aerial warfare; both sides have some of these. Colin Harvey and "Skipper" fit the stereotype best (in terms of looks and manner), but any named character with pilot's wings who isn't dead by the end of the film is at least an honourary example.
** Special mention for a German bomber pilot who struggles to keep his shot-up He-111 in the air with one hand while holding pressure on his gunner’s sucking chest wound with the other.
* AddedAlliterativeAppeal: 'Leave the flaming fighters! It's the bloody bombers we want!'

* BigDamnHeroes: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill

* BlatantLies: A radio announcement stating that 'several RAF Aerodromes were also attacked, and some casualties were sustained, but they were light'... playing over a shot of the ''smouldering ruins'' of one of said aerodromes.

* CompositeCharacter

* EagleSquadron: Most notably, the Polish, Czech and Canadian pilots fighting for the Royal Air Force. The credits include a list of different nations whose pilots fought for Britain during the titular battle.
** As a point of trivia, the [[TropeNamer actual Trope Namers]], the three Eagle Squadrons of American volunteers that served in the RAF, do not appear in this film because those squadrons did not become operational until after the Battle of Britain[[note]]No matter what Film/PearlHarbor [[CriticalResearchFailure wants to tell you]][[/note]].

* FatBastard: Göring becomes this as the film progresses - he grows Fat ([[ShownTheirWork which actually happened in]] RealLife), and becomes more and more of a Bastard towards his own subordinates as the battle's tables turn.

-->'''Skipper''': ''(As their airfield is under German air attack)'' Well don't just ''stand'' there! Get one ''up!''

* GetAHoldOfYourselfMan: When one of the women under her command is [[InelegantBlubbering Blubbering Inelegantly]] after a bombing raid, Maggie Harvey snaps, 'Bates! Pull yourself together!'

* HystericalWoman: A female auxiliary is reduced to InelegantBlubbering after her base is the target of Luftwaffe Air Raid, earning her a QuitYourWhining from Maggie Harvey.

-->"''Don't you yell at me, Mr. Warrick!''"

* JustPlaneWrong: There are a number of inaccuracies in that department, although they made quite an effort to avoid this as far as possible. One particularly notable instance is in sequences with groups of Hurricanes on approach Bf 109s stand in for more Hurricanes in the background, leading to the entertaining fact that they're basically heading into battle with enemies on their tail.
** There is another little fun bit of this, although very slight - The Spanish HA-1112s and CASA 2.111s (license-built versions of the Bf-109 and He-111 respectively) used for the film were powered by Rolls Royce Merlin engines and easily distinguishable from their German counterparts by the bulky air-intake under the engine. So the vast majority of planes in the movie - on both sides - used the same engine.

* {{Leitmotif}}: The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNVVoH9-QH0&t=0m31s Luftwaffe]] and the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFEXitPn1ko RAF]] both get an awesome theme. The former is notoriously [[LargeHam hammy]] - see MusicToInvadePolandTo.

* MoodWhiplash: Two German pilots are visiting Berlin to give a report, and we see the German civilians going on with their lives, enjoying a pleasant night in Berlin as a peaceful rendition of the Luftwaffe-Marsch... [[OhCrap Then all of the lights cut out across the city, and air raid sirens begin wailing...]]
** There's also a cruel one where Sergeant-Pilot Andy is joking with a young boy when he sees [[spoiler: that the church hall has taken a direct hit, killing all inside, including his wife and sons.]]
* MusicToInvadePolandTo: [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] intentionally with the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNVVoH9-QH0&t=0m31s Luftwaffe-Marsch]], composed by Ron Goodwin. Done so well that many people today believe it to be an ''actual'' German UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo march, and the real RAF [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=2m05s&v=5n0tFJWq2-Y use it for drill displays on occasion]].
* NewMeat: Several replacement pilots. Most get killed off fairly quickly (one on his first sortie) Only one lives long enough to become a ShellShockedVeteran, he and one of two newbies who arrived just before the last big battle sequence are the only ones who survive the whole film.
* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: Averted. The one time [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler Hitler's]] voice is heard in the film, he speaks with a heavy Southern accent - the real Hitler came from Austria. That's right: [[ShownTheirWork they actually made an effort]] to portray someone who speaks ''a different language from the film's creators and expected audience'' with the correct accent.

* OffTheShelfFX: A lot of scenes were very clever editing involving cutting between studio sets, live-action footage of preserved 1940-era warplanes, and FX involving virtually off-the-shelf models of the Airfix type. Even in 1969, there simply were not enough preserved [=WW2=]-era aircraft to have live footage of massed German and British aircraft in the sort of numbers that would have fought over southern England in 1940. Scenes of lots and lots of German bombers in formation were done as model shots, using off-the shelf Airfix kits [[note]]Even in 1969, other manufacturers were available. But Airfix were nearest and most ubiquitous.[[/note]] of German aircraft. The kit-bashing element involved adapting the completed models to take small electric motors and batteries so that the airscrews moved authentically. Pyrotechnics were built into some models, which were adapted to break up in ways that would have been realistic for real aircraft and not for plastic kits, whose parts and assembly do not usually correspond to the way in which real aircraft are built and how they deconstruct if catastrophic breaking stresses are applied. [[note]]i.e, when they are shot down or sustain critical damage in flight. [[/note]]

-->'''Dispersal''': ''ALL SECTIONS SCRAMBLE!''
* RuleSixtyThree: Believe it or not, exists. Can be found [[http://danbooru.donmai.us/pool/show/3987 here.]]
* ShownTheirWork: the production company rounded up every flyable Spitfire and Hurricane they could, and simulated the Luftwaffe by using Spanish copies of the Me-109 and He-111 built under license.
** DoingItForTheArt: in an early scene, a Hurricane does a victory roll, and the engine sputters while the plane is inverted. The early war Spitfires and Hurricanes used a gravity-fed carburetor, and would actually stall out if flown inverted for too long. Indeed, this is exactly the reason cited by Harvey when he chews out the pilot for the maneuver later.
* SittingDuck: Throughout the early part of the movie, many British planes fail to get off the ground before being shot up by the Luftwaffe.
** Indeed, an early scene has an airfield in France in the midst of being abandoned. The planes that aren't able to fly out on their own are doused in gasoline so the Brits can destroy them and keep them out of German hands. The Germans just happen to show up on cue to shoot up the now highly-flammable planes.

* TemptingFate "You know what our friend Goering said: "If ever a bomb falls on Berlin, you may call me 'Meier.'"
** IronicEcho: [[DeadpanSnarker "You may call me 'Meier.'"]]
* TitleDrop: The BBC radio announcer quoting UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill, saying "What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over; the Battle of Britain is about to begin". Cue the SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic.
* TranslationConvention: One of the first UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo films to avert this. The British, French, Germans and even the Poles speak their own language. The latter is actually a PlotPoint, as problems created by the language barrier between Polish volunteers and their RAF commanders were fully TruthInTelevision. Non-English dialogue is not subtitled whenever the context makes it unnecessary.
** It also comes up when a Polish pilot is shot down, bails out and lands in a field - where the farmers mistake him for a German pilot because of his accent.

* UnreliableNarrator: The BBC broadcasts heard throughout the film, occasionally giving a somewhat... [[BlatantLies softer]] reporting of the events that we have just seen. On the German side, an officer boastfully claims to have destroyed over half the British fighters in their first attack.
* VanillaEdition: The 2009 Blu-ray release has no special features, only language and chapter selection.

* UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo
* ZippingUpTheBodybag: Combined with AMillionIsAStatistic and an aversion of MenAreTheExpendableGender. After an air raid on a RAF base, we see that they didn't even use bodybags, instead a whole group of female auxiliary personnel who were killed are lined up together and covered with a tarp until they can be [[DueToTheDead dealt with appropriately.]]

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Maggie Harvey meets an RAF officer who had [[BodyHorror suffered severe facial burns]] and is visibly put off by it. [[spoiler:Her husband ends up caught in a burning Spitfire in the next battle sequence. He escapes, but is badly burned.]]

-->''Don't you yell at me, Mr. Warrick!''

* BittersweetEnding: England and their remaining allies are able to beat back the Luftwaffe, but at a terrible cost to their pilots and UsefulNotes/TheHomeFront families. [[spoiler:By remaining defiant while Nazi Germany invades Soviet Russia and the United States enters the conflict, England can serve as the staging area for the Western Front to win the war five years later.]]

Has an AllStarCast.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Harvey meets an RAF officer who had [[BodyHorror been burned badly]] and is visibly put off by it. [[spoiler:Her husband ends up caught in a burning Spitfire in the next battle sequence. He escapes, but is badly burned.]]

* CoolPlane: Quite a few, actually, both British and German.

* TheClimax: The massive aerial fight at the end.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Harvey meets an RAF officer who had [[BodyHorror been burned badly]] and is visibly put off by it. [[spoiler: Her husband ends up caught in a burning Spitfire in the next battle sequence. He escapes, but is badly burned.]]
* FriendOrFoe: PlayedForLaughs: [[EagleSquadron Hogs]] bails out and lands in a field, where the farmers take him prisoner and march him off at pitchfork-point, while he protests ([[LanguageBarrier in Polish]]) that he's fighting on their side.

* HomeGuard: Of the TorchesAndPitchforks variety, showing how desparate Britain's situation is during this campaign. Also, after their radar stations are hit, the RAF is left to rely on the Observer Corps to spot the bombers visually and report in.

* LanguageBarrier: 303 Squadron is manned by Polish expatriates. They are [[FightingForAHomeland very enthusiastic]], but are unable to communicate effectively with their English comrades. After being mistaken for a German and taken prisoner, Hogs can be seen studying a Polish-English Dictionary late in the film.

* OffTheShelfFX: A lot of scenes were very clever editing involving cutting between studio sets, live-action footage of preserved 1940-era warplanes, and FX iunvolving virtually off-the-shelf models of the Airfix type. Even in 1969, there simply were not enough preserved [=WW2=]-era aircraft to have live footage of massed German and British aircraft in the sort of numbers that would have fought over southern England in 1940. Scenes of lots and lots of German bombers in formation were done as model shots, using off-the shelf Airfix kits [[note]]Even in 1969, other manufactueers were available. But Airfix were nearest and most ubiquitous.[[/note]] of German aircraft. The kit-bashing element involved adapting the completed models to take small electric motors and batteries so that the airscrews moved authentically. Pyrotechnics were built into some models, which were adapted to break up in ways that would have been realistic for real aircraft and not for plastic kits, whose parts and assembly do not usually correspond to the way in which real aircraft are built and how they deconstruct if catastrophic breaking stresses are applied. [[note]]ie, when they are shot down or sustain critical damage in flight. [[/note]]

* StuffBlowingUp: Both sides' aeroplanes tend to explode spectacularly when hit. This is because a) real airplanes are full of gasoline and b) given the special effects techniques available at the time the only practical way to show a real airplane being destroyed in flight was to matte an explosion over it in post production. The model shots avoid this, naturally.

* WarIsHell: German and British pilots alike meet very unpleasant ends. One of the main characters is last seen trying to bail out of a plane whlie his cockpit is engulfed in flames. [[GoryDiscretionShot We are told later that he bailed out and survived]], but suffered [[BodyHorror severe burns over most of his body]]. The aftermath of one air raid includes a row of dead Women's Auxiliary Air Force personnel covered by a tarp. Another scene shows that a church hall full of civilians (including the family of one of the main characters) shown in a previous scene has suffered a direct hit. By the end of the film, German and British pilots alike are shown to be badly strung out, the British units full of nervous newbies (most of the experienced pilots having been shot down by now) and the German units shown to be badly thinned by attrition (not receiving replacements as quickly as the Britons are).

* BittersweetEnding: England and their remaining allies are able to beat back the Luftwaffe, but at a terrible cost to their pilots and TheHomeFront families. [[spoiler:By remaining defiant while Nazi Germany invades Soviet Russia and the United States enters the conflict, England can serve as the staging area for the Western Front to win the war five years later.]]