I refer you to the above.

She died. So shocking in our so ‘safe’ society.
Know exactly what you mean, Trekb but frankly, my emotional reaction is pretty strong and I am not ashamed of it. Capital Punishment? No. But God Strewth! Sometimes it’s hard to restrain one’s feelings.

Particularly brutal in places, that one. And an ultimately uplifting message for the populace in dark times. I especially enjoyed the transformation from general ‘good egg’ to savage Nazi that we see in the German 2nd in command.
And the bit where Nora shoots her putative man friend, the village spy.
And Butch Harris (Basil Sidney), as a Jerry.

Mr R Goodwin again!
My dear old dad hates that particular tune with a will, mainly because, when he was in Masirah in the 1960’s it was one of the foibles of island life that the theme to ‘633 Squadron’ was played, full blast, over the station tannoy every morning to ensure that everyone was awake……this didn’t go down too well if you had had a night shift.

Mr Goodwin’s oeuvre is astonishing. Among others he wrote that wonderful light hearted piece that forms the theme to the Margaret Rutherford ‘Miss Marple’ movies. Not to mention, BoB, 633 Squadron, Operation Crossbow, Where Eagles Dare, Force Ten from Navarone, Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, Monte Carlo or Bust and that stunning classic, The Spaceman and King Arthur.
The list goes on and on; he really WAS 1960’s movie music!

Scarily, I find myself agreeing with everything you say…….your movie choice is uncannily close to my own. Robert Shaw recorded how, when he auditioned for ‘The Dambusters’ he was told ‘NCO…..you’ll never make an officer,’ but only a few years later he was Squadron Leader ‘Skipper’. He never could work out what had changed!!

Oh, and the Panzer Lied? Good, innit?

That opening credits music, which I often find is my default humming tune, was at the time called ‘Luftwaffe March’ but is often ( confusingly I always think), known as ‘Aces High’. It was written by the matchless Ron Goodwin especially for the film and was not an actual military marching tune. ( The story of how United Artists decided they didn’t like Sir William Walton’s original score and commissioned Goodwin to produce another is a rare example of a movie exec knowing better, I think. Walton’s piece, ‘Battle in the Air’, was retained however, and rightly so, for the climactic 15 September montage near the end of the movie).
Marvellous film which I first saw in the Astra Cinema Akrotiri at the age of eight. I remember not liking the bits where the Heinkel crews get shot up one little bit. For days afterwards the playground at the school on camp was a mass of whirling schoolboys playing at Battle of Britain during break while the girls did heir best to avoid getting caught up in the melee.

Definitely in my ‘top ten’ but pipped a bit in my opinion, by The Cruel Sea – gritty, technically superb and a real study in British Character acting from it’s period.

He’s using a French T47 class destroyer. Post war design and, much modified now, doesn’t look much like a WW2 vessel, French or otherwise. It’ll be kept pretty busy trying to simulate the entire Royal Navy!