First Of The Few

I’m sure everyone’s seen this by now, of course….

One of my current model projects is a 1/72 scale version of “K5054” from this film. A lot easier to produce than a model of the real one!

I used to think of it as “just” a war film, but I’ve come to have a new appreciation for what it is – a flag-waving piece of morale-boosting entertainment, at a time when the war wasn’t going that well. And I bloody love it. Spitfire pornography aside, it tells an interesting story of British 1920s aviation which has seldom been explored elsewhere, save in books or documentaries.

David Niven steals the show, of course, but Leslie Howard’s performance as RJ Mitchell is compelling and tragic – made all the sadder for the fact that, as with Mitchell’s design of the Spitfire, this would be the final product that Howard produced.

Anyway, if you have a couple of hours to spare, and you don’t have it on DVD or blu-ray, the YouTube link is the full article. Enjoy.