the audience applauded

Really Surprised!

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Angels One Five is a low budget rip roaring Britain at war films focusing on the air force and the Battle of Britain.TB 'Septic' Baird (John Gregson) brings in a new plane to the base and promptly crashes it. He then gets involved on a aerial dogfight which we see very little off, more hear the radio transmissions.The squadron is commanded by the stern 'Tiger' Small (Jack Hawkins), who is trying to shape his unit as a team but also understand their frailties.There is nothing much to say about this film apart from I kept thinking it was made in 1942 and surprised to learn that it was actually made in 1952. It looks like a propaganda film made during the war.It is full of stiff upper lip types, subservient working class men and the women are passive such as the radio ops room were full of women's reaction shots. The film was rather dull that celebrates a war that had finished only a few years earlier.The only thing of interest was to see familiar television faces in this film such as Peter Jones, Harry Fowler, Sam Kydd, Dulcie Gray, Russell Hunter etc as well as the line from an officious warden telling someone not to put a light out at the end of the runway and if they need to put on a red light.

Angels One Five covers a lot of the same ground as the more lavishly produced Battle Of Britain. But the same story about just a very few defending the realm and so many owing their freedom and their very existence to this relatively small bunch of men and women. One thing I do have to point out is that the contribution made by the women working in the operation center.Jack Hawkins is a stern and resolute commander of a coastal Royal Air Force Base. He's got some strict standards of behavior, the strictest being for himself. The bulk of the film is concerning the arrival of a new pilot who doesn't near and endear himself to Hawkins by crashing a a new Hurricane fighter that he was ferrying to the base. John Gregson plays the new man and Hawkins assigns him to the operations center, the better for him to see a whole picture of their situation before flying.Gregson in his own way is stiff and formal, memorizing a whole book of regulations. But that's hardly a substitute for experience and common sense.Some aerial combat situations, but mostly this movie is about the day to life on the base and the attacks there on. In the best stiff upper lip tradition they follow what Horatio Nelson said about England expects every man (and woman) to do his duty.And so they did and rather gloriously.

Just watched this film again, really good fun. I've recently bought a WW2 computer Flight Simulator called IL-2 and afterwards I just had to go flying and shoot down some bally Huns, Tally Ho!Shame there are no memorable quotes listed as this film has lots. My favourite is just after the Ops bunker takes a direct hit, the roof has fallen in and there is concrete dust everywhere. People slowly start dusting themselves off, one of the WAAF's (Foster) timidly comes up to SqLdr Clinton and offers him a cup of tea.Foster: Tea sir ? It's a bit gritty, sir... SqLdr Clinton: (looks at the tea in amazement for 5 seconds) Foster, that's an inspiration ! Remind me to have you promoted.Classic.

Typical fare for post-war British cinema-goers - stiff upper lips versus the might of the Nazi war machine. Told over a few short weeks in 1940, the plot follows Pilot Officer 'Septic' Baird (John Gregson) as a fledgling Hurricane pilot posted to an operational squadron during the Battle of Britain. 'Septic' struggles stoically in the face of his boisterous comrades, an earnest would-be girlfriend and impossible numbers of enemy raiders. The Station Commander (Jack Hawkins) puts a human face on the RAF hierarchy, burdened by the knowledge that the fate of the nation really does depend on the skill of his young pilots. 'The few' eventually grasp victory but it doesn't come cheap.Admittedly wooden by today's standards but, through films like this, a whole generation built up their Saturday afternoon understanding of the RAF's 'finest hour'.