633 Squadron

Plot synopsis:
When the Norwegian resistance leader, Royal Norwegian Navy Lieutenant Erik Bergman, travels to Great Britain to report the location of a German V-2 rocket fuel plant, the Royal Air Force's No. 633 Squadron is assigned to destroy it. The squadron is led by Wing Commander Roy Grant, an ex-Eagle Squadron pilot (an American serving in the RAF before the US entered the war).
The plant is in a seemingly impregnable location beneath an overhanging cliff at the end of a long, narrow fjord lined with numerous anti-aircraft guns. The only way to destroy the plant is by collapsing the cliff on top of it, a job for 633 Squadron's fast and manoeuvrable de Havilland Mosquitos. The squadron trains in Scotland, where there are narrow glens similar to the fjord. There, Grant is introduced to Bergman's sister, Hilde. They are attracted to each other, despite Grant's aversion to wartime relationships.
The Norwegian resistance is tasked with destroying the anti-aircraft defences of the facility immediately before the scheduled attack. When unexpected German reinforcements arrive, Bergman returns to Norway to try to gather more forces. However, he is captured while transporting desperately needed weapons, taken to Gestapo headquarters and tortured for information. Since Bergman knows too much, he must be silenced before he breaks. Grant and newly married Pilot Officer Bissell are sent in with a single Mosquito to bomb the Gestapo building. Though they are successful, their shot-up Mosquito fighter-bomber crashes on its return, and Bissell is wounded and becomes blind. A tearful Hilde thanks Grant for ending her brother's suffering.
Still worried, Air Vice-Marshal Davis decides to move up the attack to the next day. However, the resistance fighters are ambushed and killed, leaving the defences still intact. Although Grant is given the option of aborting, he decides to press on. The factory is destroyed at the cost of the entire squadron, though a few crews are able to ditch in the fjord. Grant crash-lands but a local man helps Grant's navigator, Flight Lieutenant Hoppy Hopkinson, pull the wounded wing commander from the burning wreckage. Back in Britain, Davis tells a fellow officer who is aghast at the losses, "You can't kill a squadron."

Tags: boring

Review:
I am a great fan of "633 Squadron" and have read a few articles about the making of the film so I can correct a few errors in previous postings.In the original 1956 novel the central character was Wing- Commander Roy Grenville.
A WW2 squadron of Mosquito bombers are training for a perilous mission to bomb a cliff face in Norway; with the aim to bring the cliff tumbling down on the German arms factory below it.633 Squadron may not be a film for the War enthusiast purists?
Sure the intermittent scenes between the training sequences and the actual mission are mere filler, and the subplots obviously halt the flow of the movie (hello romance, hello sacrifice clichés); but what they do do is give a sort of added feel to the proceedings come the mission at the end.
Also boasting (in my opinion naturally) one of the greatest scores used in a War movie, courtesy of Ron Goodwin, the film triumphs because the ending is all that you hope for.
I have a feeling this isn't the only time that Cliff Robertson played the trans-Atlantic star beefing up a late British war movie for the US market.
I suspect Cliff is representing a Canadian - though there were also a few US volunteers flying in the RAF in WWII (as late as 1944 and in a bomber I'm not so sure about - but its not totally impossible!) The real casting problem is George Chakiris.
I saw this when it first came out I was eight years old, and lived close to a WWII airfield south of London, so I was captivated by a film which gave me a wealth of fantasy to enjoy while I walked the then deserted runways of Kenley.I have just watched the DVD.
This film which begins with its blood pumping Ron Goodwin's musical score and the cloud opening sequences fire's it's beginning, then lets one down with it's almost 'World War II pulp comic book' screenplay.
The dialogue is sometimes painful to recall, the story could have been better written, but the flying sequences recalls many real Mosquito W.W. II exploits as a pinpoint high speed strike aircraft, such as the real historical attack at rooftop height in France on the Gestapo headquarters freeing the many French Resistance prisoners standing out foremost.
My dad, being in the Air Force's Strategic Air Command (SAC) at the time, knew that "633 Squadron" was for me.Yes, I have read some comments on this movie about the use of less than realistic props (airplane models) but let's not forget this was shot back in the early 60's.
It really gets my blood pumping to this day!No, I haven't said a lot about the plot or the characters because the movie went beyond that for an 8 year old boy "flying" with the Squadron.
What's best about 633 Squadron are the special effects where they used vintage Mosquito fighter planes from World War II.
This action-packed airplanes film deals about a Mosquito squadron is assigned to bomb an installation in Norway.The squadron commander(Clift Robertson) has a best friend(George Chakiris)and Resistance leader involved and he falls in love with his sister(Maria Perschy).Later ,he's assigned for bombing the stronghold where his friend is being held.The Air vice-Marshal(Harry Andrews) orders to leader along with his squadron(Michael Goodlife among others) on a mission into the fjords in search of V2 Nazi fuel plant is guarded by heavy anti-airplane defenses and is deemed bomb-proof.The Mosquito squadron to save England must to sacrifice everything they love and destroy vital points and gun positions in a dangerous and secret mission.This nearly impossibly mission is further complicated by the German guns, Nazi air raid and the impenetrable fortress.It's a fictionalized account of the Mosquitos feats ,though based partially on real events.Well-served by a clever screenplay(James Clavell,Howard Koch)but the writers have also directly copied another classic war movie titled¨The dam busters¨ and takes part from ¨Operation Crossbow¨(Michael Anderson).The movie actually comes to life with the excellently realised and well-staged air battle scenes and ingenious flying machines.They have been made by maquette and scale model and someone is an authentic aircraft.Spectacular ,fantastic aerial photograph with an exciting bombing raid at the end and accompanied with a memorable score by Ron Goodwin.Colorful cinematography by cameraman Edward Scaife.Well done warlike film by experienced director Walter Grauman turns a good job,he's an usual television movies director.The film even got a spin off,titled ¨The Mosquito squadron¨(Boris Sagal)with David McCallum and with the majority of footage is lifted from this one, besides is known that inspired the ending ¨Star Wars¨..
Yes it might be exciting to a ten year old child in the 1970s but as an adult my critical faculties was instantly able to notice what's wrong with this movie The screenplay feels rather disjointed as it jumps about from location to location and it almost feels like a storyboard rather than a completed script since the scenes seem to finish and start in an unnatural manner .
Cut to a Mosquito aircraft in mid flight then cut to the interior of the cockpit which is obviously a studio set with some painfully obvious back screen projection and of course there's the very obvious model aircraft which is a common flaw with airborne war movies from this period All this makes a long cherished movie like 633 SQUADRON rather disappointing when viewed today but it's by no means a terrible movie .
Ron Goodwin's score still remains impressive and some of the scenes were reworked into a little known film from 1977 called STAR WARS so it can't be all bad .
I read that Cliff Robertson became very enamouredred of flying during the movie and bought a Spitfire, not a Mosquito.
It's a quite interesting movie, from a certain point of view.633 squadron had all the clichés: a tip of hat of our ally with an Australian, an Indian, you may also read a New Zealand title somewhere, every kind of British and of course our beloved American wing commander from the E.S., Eagle Squadron.
Perhaps one of the most daring flying groups of the British Air Force was the infamous "633 Squadron." Cliff Robertson plays Wing Cmdr.
Goodwin also did the scoring for "Battle of Britain" and 'Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines" as well as "Where Eagles Dare" and several other adventure genre films..
The very American Cliff Robertson plays a British wing commander and the very dark, very Greek George Chakiris plays a Norwegian commando.
The film is quite poor other than the action scenes which are great and the Musical score is possibly the best ever!
From Ron Goodwin's score to the lead characters as played by both Cliff Robertson and George Chakiris, this movie catches you right from the beginning.
Robertson plays the commander of the titled RAF squadron who fly the fabulous deHavilland Mosquito who are "volunteered" for adangerous mission to knock out a German factory situated in a Norwegian fjord.
That scene reminded me of the one in Star Wars, when the X-wing fighters were flying through the canyon on the Death Star.D'you reckon George Lucas saw this before he made Star Wars?I can recommend this movie as some light, rousing entertainment.
Read on if you'd like my opinion.Cliff Robertson plays the American leader of a squadron of British planes.
Overall, I'd give this one a 7 and say it is just a bit better than "Mosquito Squadron"--mostly because although Robertson mostly plays a grumpus, at least he has a personality--a problem with the other film, where the leading man was pretty flat, as he was given little in the way of personality..
The good part is of course the Mosquitoes, those wonderful twin-Merlin-powered plywood wonders that could out-lift heavy bombers, out-fight fighters on both sides, and in an out-and-out dash, the fastest bloody thing in the sky until jets came along.The bad part is the people, a squadron made up of token characters right out of the aforementioned Blackhawk comic book.
There is even a Norwegian Navy lieutenant played by George Chakiris in one of the most extreme cases of mis-casting ever - he's Greek, fer cryin' out loud!This film was shot in the 60's, where the production crew managed to scrape together four flyable Mossies and three more that could taxi under power (and were eventually destroyed for crash scenes).
The music lives on at Air Displays and Military Tattoos all over the country and has been more or less adopted by the Royal Air Force as an unofficial signature tune,rather like the "Dambusters'March".Such was Goodwin's brilliance that his is one of the few iconic war movie themes that is not in fact a march.Unfortunately that's where the brilliance begins and ends for "633 Squadron" because the movie itself is pretty poor stuff.In an extraordinary piece of casting Mr George Chakiris fresh from his triumphs as Tony and Bernardo in the stage and screen versions respectively of "West Side Story" does a turn as a Norwegian Resistance Leader that brings a new meaning to the word "inept".All his experience of playing New York gang leaders is to no avail,and he flutters his brown eyes appealingly to no good effect.Mr Cliff Robertson is similarly stymied as an air force officer with a curled lip and a killing cigarette habit.All the usual 1960s Brit war movie suspects do their respective turns with yawn - inducing predictability and lots of toy aeroplanes crumple unconvincingly.
The producers went to the effort of getting enough airworthy Mosquitos together for this film, but didn't bother writing a script, or hiring a director.In fact, the bones of a good story are there, but the execution is so ham-fisted that it's laughably bad in many spots.Let's see: Every cliché in the book is used, American Eagle Squadron fighter.
This is a laudable idea, quite far-sighted for its time, and truthful: during WWII the RAF was indeed crewed by people of all nations and races, from the British Empire and beyond, but this film points it up in such a contrived and heavy-handed way, it's embarrassing to modern sensibilities.So why on earth have I got 633 Squadron in my collection?
Great flying scenes starring the planes and music to match as others have stated.A serious flaw is that Cliff Robertson is not at all believable as a British pilot as George Chakiris similarly bears no resemblance to a Norweigan.
I enjoyed watching the Mosquitos fly, but the special effects, particularly the model work, was so bad that I felt embarrassed to be watching the film.
As well as not having a wooden American actor in the lead role, the plot is almost entirely different (though the fjord raid remains, being to destroy a heavy-water plant being used to develop an atomic bomb for Germany, it is more exciting than in the film).
I realize that it was the 1960's when this was made, and films about world war two were big because it had only been twenty years since the actual war.I had to shut the DVD off and go back and watch the rest later.Ho Hum. Weak story, sort of wooden acting.The special effects were rather cheesy even by 1964 standards.
633 Squadron actually part inspired the Death Star battle sequence in Star Wars and although you might have never seen this film before, you would have heard of its stirring theme music.It is 1944 and the Royal Air Force commanders have been informed of a factory producing fuel for the German V2 rockets in the Norwegian fjords.
A squadron of De Havilland Mosquitoes are assigned the task for this dangerous mission.Cliff Robertson plays the stoic American flying ace (who joined the RAF) and he is joined by Oscar winner George Chakiris who plays the Norwegian resistance fighter Erik Bergman who is there to provide the sex appeal and has a sister who Robertson can romance.The British actors are also rans but who can miss Crossroads legend Shughie McFee and the film makes a nod to soldiers from all parts of the commonwealth.Despite the stirring finale the film has an hackneyed plot, cheesy lines such as 'You can't kill a squadron' and some hammy acting.
In many ways a pretty poor movie, as others have pointed out.However, poor as it is, it is one of only two films I know of (the other being the execrable "Mosquito Squadron") which features as its star the De Havilland HD98 Mosquito - THE outstanding aircraft of the Second World War, and for this reason alone, it is worth recommending.A much better film properly featuring the Mosquito deserves to be made, however.In case people don't know, the Mosquito was faster than any fighter aircraft, carried the same bomb load as a B-17 Flying Fortress, performed outstandingly on precision bombing raids, as a nightfighter, as a reconnaissance aircraft and suffered the lowest loss rate of any allied aircraft (despite the impression given in the film).
in the end they do blow up the cliff that falls on the factory , cliff goes in 1st and gets pretty shot up but makes it through, then the guy with the hook goes in and  gets shot up too but makes it , everybody else gets killed other than the Aussie who makes it out but eventually runs out of ammo and collides with a suppose to be me-109 but it looks like a little crappy plane , the hook guys plane literally explodes on the way out from flak and cliffs plane gets shot up and he crash lands in the norwegion countryside and dies (i think, u only see him pass out)the mission is declared a success.the only thing i found amusing and entertaining about this film is watching all the guys getting killed and getting shot up going into the cliffThe Camera Angles are crappy ,the special effects are horrible , there just made out of models when they blow up or crash , the cockpit views absolutely suckdo not hire this film0 stars out of 10 , complete waste of time.
I remembered Ron Goodwin's stirring martial score, Maria Perschy's slightly unorthodox beauty, George Chakiris's Hollywood hair do and no-can-do performance, and, most of all, the sleek and noisy power of the half-dozen or so De Havilland Mosquitoes sailing through the fossate Fjords of Norway to bomb hell out of the plant making fuel for Nazi V-1 rockets.Cliff Robertson is the squadron CO and gives a professional performance.
Robertson puts an end to his pain by demolishing Gestapo headquarters and Chakiris along with it.This mission -- along with the final suicide run against the plant -- are likely to strike some viewers as coming directly from a comic book, yet Mosquitoes were used more than once for just such precision bombing.
Every one of the Mosquitoes is lost on the final mission and the best the Wing Commander, Harry Andrews, can come up with is, "You can't kill a squadron." (Oh, no?) On the whole it resembles a cross between "The Dam Busters" and "The Guns of Navarone" without the gloss of either.
Not surprisingly for a film made in 1964 the special effects seem dated but the sight and sound or real Mosquitoes flying is something a modern film couldn't have.The squadron is given the task of destroying a factory making rocket fuel in Norway, to do this they will have to fly up a well defended fjord and bomb a fault on the mountain above the factory rather than attacking the building directly.
Grant gets romantically involved with Erik Bergman's sister.Like most British war films of the time this isn't about gung-ho heroics but about the sacrifice involved in warfare.
The film was fairly well acted and the flying scenes were great, it is tragic that there are no longer any airworthy Mosquitoes here.
633 SQUADRON is yet another men-on-a-mission WW2 movie about a group of bomber pilots tasked with taking down a Nazi fuel plant.
Don't you know there's a war on, Air Vice Marshal!If you've never seen this movie and you feel like a bit of uncomplicated, old-fashioned entertainment with some thrilling aerial photography and great theme music, you won't be disappointed.
Both films depict the exploits of a British bomber squadron during the Second World War. Both have as their climax a spectacular raid on a vital German target.
In the original novel on which the film was based the Squadron's commander, Roy Grant, was British, but here he becomes an American.
The second is the final scene (said to have inspired the "trench run" sequence in "Star Wars") in which the Squadron fly up the fjord to attack the factory, running the gauntlet of the German anti- aircraft batteries- a thrilling sequence which has made the film beloved of all aviation enthusiasts and is the main attraction when it is shown on television today.
The special effects are not that great though although seeing real Mosquitos is brilliant because there are none currently flying in Britain.
Cliff Robertson plays a Canadian Wing Commander who has licked his squadron into top shape which is why it is given the "reward" of having to carry out the dangerous mission of destroying a Nazi rocket fuel factory in Norway.
Cliff Robertson who was a good American actor played a credible leading role as wing commander.
The plane sequences are all fun to watch, Robertson makes quite a good leading man, and of course the theme music is always great to hear, a good film.
This air-epic involves the excellent De Havilland Mosquito aircraft, still an acknowledged warplane, but overlooked and thankfully helped by this film for its true recognition in the war.Naturally to sell it to the 'states, we were fed with an American 'Eagle Squadron' flyer , Roy Grant (Robertson) and numerous British stalwarts as the RAF flyers, but also treated to the other American actor, George Chakiris (Bergman) as the hero Norwegian resistance leader aiding the RAF (Who looked about as Norwegian as Nana Mouskouri).