Watching and writing about each of these Ealing films there
is often a struggle between considering them as individual entries, and linking
them to an overarching and dominant narrative of what Ealing did, or was
capable of. It is one of the reasons that Charles Barr’s Ealing Studios and George Perry’s Forever Ealing books are the main points of reference, as they do
try and encompass the whole of the studio’s output, and make a coherent
argument about the studio across the twenty-one years of activity this blog covers.
Yet there are times – and watching Ships
with Wings is one of those times – when the focus on the content of an
individual film complicates its place within that larger hierarchy.
Here, for example, Barr notes the film seems ‘amazingly
dated,’ that Churchill threatened to postpone the film’s release (because its
climax could be seen as a disaster for the dramatised Fleet Air Arm), and
states the ‘wildly romantic’ triumph lacked ‘anything... for general audiences
to associate with.’ (Barr 1980, 24-5) Barring the Churchill note, these are a
troubling claims, largely because they see the film in relation only to
Ealing’s other wartime productions, and the themes of community, pulling
together and inter-class cooperation that are seen to dominate the best British
wartime films. The following discussion is, therefore, not an attempt to easily
reclaim this film (it remains highly problematic in its depiction of the enemy,
and of women, for example) but to think about it as a film in its own right.
Covering four years in the life of aircraft carrier HMS Invincible (the fictional name for
the HMS Ark Royal – the ship gets a starring credit after the actors in the
opening titles), the film is initially less interested in the ship’s crew, and
more in three heroic pilots, Lt Dick Stacey (John Clements), Lt Maxwell
(Michael Rennie) and Lt David Grant (Michael Wilding), who will serve on the
carrier. Although we see them ‘at work,’ the focus falls on their
relationships, notably with the Wetherby family: Admiral Wetherby (Leslie
Banks), his daughter Celia (Jane Baxter), who carried a torch for Stacey, and
son Mickey (Hugh Burden), who wants to be a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm on the Invincible. Wetherby is an older
officer, who dismisses the carrier as ‘a floating garage’ and ‘a block of
tenements’: in one sense, he is the film’s Colonel Blimp-style figure who
thinks a naval battle should be fought in traditional ways, with big guns, not
with fighter planes and bombers.
Lt Stacey falls for Celia, now she’s older, and breaks it
off with girlfriend (and famous singer/actress) Kay Gordon (Ann Todd). But the
competition between the three pilots for Celia reaches its pitch when, to
impress Mickey, Stacey takes him up in a test plane that has a dodgy wing. With
the wing threatening to break loose, Stacey tells Mickey to bail out; then does
so himself – but Mickey, obsessed with being a pilot, stays onboard, and
attempts to land it. His death, and Stacey’s determination to fly a plane he’d
been told needed repairs, is enough to get Stacey dismissed from the Navy.
As should already be clear, the first half of the film is
more interested in romantic dilemmas than professional ones: and this
continues, as the film follows Stacey as he retreats to a Greek island, working
as a pilot-for-hire for ‘Papa’ Papadopoulos (Edward Chapman). The outbreak of war
has little immediate impact on Stacey, but the arrival of Kay (and some German
spies) on the island soon brings the war home to him. Again, the emphasis is on
romance and character psychology – Stacey wants to reenlist (Wetherby turns
down the request, despite support from Invincible’s
captain Fairfax – Basil Sydney), but it is the death of Kay and Papa at the
hands of German agents that really propels him back into the war, and back into
the seat of a fighter plane.
The final act of the film, an aerial attack by the Fleet Air
Arm, when naval passage is blocked by a minefield, brings Stacey back to the
beginning, meeting up with Maxwell and Grant (now married to Celia), and (with
losses mounting up) ordered back into action by Wetherby. At first, Stacey is
absent, left to sit in the mess room while all the other pilots head out and
engage the Germans. Inevitably, he is asked to go up in support of his friends
on a final raid on the German base. Yet the centrality of Stacey as a character
means he is motivated by individual psychology rather than broader wartime
concerns – he wants revenge on the Germans for killing Kay and Papa, as much as
this is the right thing for Britain. In fact, the film may be unsure how to
deal with that kind of individualism, given that Stacey’s fate is dying in a
suicide run, flying himself (and a German bomber) into a dam, wiping out a
German airfield, armoured division and harbour. Barr’s note that this is a
‘wildly romantic’ ending, while accurate, ignores the fact that the whole film
has been romantic, rather than logical. In many ways, it feels like a Hollywood
film in places, emphasising the individual contributions of one heroic
individual rather than the communal success that British war films would become
known for.
But what of the claim this might make the film ‘amazingly
dated’? Some elements of the schizophrenic narrative have not weathered well:
Kay is underdeveloped, and has two song sequences that feel out of place in the
larger film (she appears to have walked in from another film, one about fashion
and opulence in London society – the film’s treatment of her big song, a
Christmas piece about Santa, could be from a musical, the filming style feels
so different); the portrayal of the German, Italian and Greek characters is
rooted in stereotype (while Papa gets a hero’s death, standing up to the German
invasion of his island, the Italians are derided – often by the Germans – and
the British view is simply that ‘You can’t argue with Germans, you just have to
kick ‘em in the pants’); but overall, the film stands up at least as well as San Demetrio, London (1943), even if its
aims are drastically different.
Ealing’s emphasis on strong location shooting remains
prominent here, making a star of the Ark Royal with on-site filming of planes
landing, wings folding up, and moving up and down on hydraulic platforms within
the ship. Yet this is also another strong outing for Ealing’s special effects
department: yes, the effects can appear dated, but that would be an unfair (and
retrospective) assessment that ignores how strong such work would have been in
1941. The film’s combination of documentary-style footage of the Ark Royal, and
its planes, is (mostly) well-matched with solid model work depicting dogfights,
bombing raids, and – towards the end – an attack on German airfield, dam, and
battalions of German tanks and vehicles. The special effects are clearly models,
but sparingly intercut with the other footage, they do create tension and scale
which, again, stands up well in comparison with other Ealing war films.
The final assessment of the film, therefore, returns to this
notion of its status as an individual film or part of a larger Ealing war
effort. There are obvious links with later Ealing productions: where The Cruel Sea would discuss men being
wedded to their ships, Maxwell and Fairfax are both described as being ‘married
to an aircraft carrier;’ the focus on officers rather than the broader crew
ties in with post-war interest in that specific class; and despite the presence
of two female characters, the film is largely uninterested in developing them
beyond bland love interests. However, in its focus on the character of Stacey, and
the domestic life of the officer class, the film remains interesting in the
choices it makes about depicting wartime endeavour and loss.
Next time, the music hall beckons for Harry Secombe and Davy (1957)...
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