Inspiring Tale of Heroism
"Reach for the Sky" is a biopic of the famous RAF pilot Douglas Bader. What made him famous, apart from the number of victories he won against German aircraft, was the fact that he had no legs. As a young pilot in 1931 he was injured in a crash and both his legs had to be amputated. He learned to walk using prosthetic legs and even manage to learn how to fly an aircraft using them, but was invalided out of the Air Force. He rejoined the service when war broke out in 1939, became a fighter pilot and was one of the "Few" who won the Battle of Britain. In 1941 he was captured by the Germans when he was forced to bail out over occupied France. His repeated attempts to escape meant that he was eventually sent to Colditz Castle.The original choice to play Bader was Richard Burton, but he pulled out when offered the lead in "Alexander the Great" at a much higher salary. His replacement was Kenneth More, an actor with a fairly small range but capable of giving some very good performances within that range. He specialised in playing calm, imperturbable upper-middle-class Englishmen or Scotsmen, often officers in the armed forces. (He could often look out of his depth when he tried to go too far outside this range as he did in, for example, "Our Girl Friday").
In some respects More therefore did not seem ideal for the role. At 42 he was considerably older than the character he was playing. (Bader was only 19 in 1929, when the film opens, and 35 in 1945 when it ends). He did not bear a great physical resemblance to Bader, who was far from calm and imperturbable; indeed, he was known for his fiery temper. And yet, in the context of the film that director Lewis Gilbert actually wanted to make, I think that More was the right choice.
In some ways this is more than just a biography of a particular individual. The indomitable Bader is also a symbol of all those who fought in the Battle of Britain- indeed, it could be argued that he is a symbol of all those British people who helped to win the war against Nazism. The role therefore needed an actor who was widely seen as embodying those characteristics which the cinema-going public would have seen as typically British, or at least typical of the British at war- courage, determination, stoicism and patriotism. And who better embodied those qualities than More? His Bader is a man who suffers terribly as a result of one error of judgement- the crash in which he was injured came as a result of his carrying out risky aerobatic manoeuvres, despite having been warned not to do so. The rest of the story can be seen as his attempt to make amends for that one error. He gives one of his best performances here, good enough to make arguments about his age or his lack of resemblance to Bader seem irrelevant.
There are few other major roles, the most substantial contribution coming from Muriel Pavlow as Bader's wife Thelma. Although Pavlow was half-Russian and half-Swiss, she specialised in playing English roses. Mention should also be made of Dorothy Alison as the inspirational nurse who helps Bader regain the ability to walk and of composer John Addison for a fine score.
War films are less fashionable today than they were in the fifties and sixties, but at that time they formed an important part of the output of the British cinema. Some of them were rather dull, but there were also many excellent examples, of which "Reach for the Sky" was one. I note that it has received comparatively few reviews on this board, but this inspiring tale of heroism deserves to be better known. 8/10
score 8/10
JamesHitchcock 23 February 2021
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6629398/35047
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