Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Caryl It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

JLRVancouver "One of Our Aircraft Is Missing" opens with the announcement of the execution of Dutch civilians by the occupying Germans for aiding the escape of a British airman shot down over Europe. The film then jumps to the crew of Vickers Wellington 'B for Bertie' as they prepare for a bombing run on Stuttgart. The bomber is brought down by German anti-aircraft artillery and the rest of the film follows the crew as they try to escape occupied Europe with the aid of the Dutch underground. The movie is strictly 'vérité', the acting is minimal and realistic, and there is no score. Clearly a 'propaganda' film, the British crew and the Dutch are heroic and resourceful, while the Germans are somewhat incompetent – but that's all part of war-time cinema and does not detract from the overall excellence of the production (especially the special effects used for the bombing raid and the crash of the bomber). The film didn't really benefit from the bit of fisticuffs toward the end but the tough Dutch woman's comments about what to do with the KO'ed Germans suggests some off-screen extra-judicial killing that the movie, regardless of the situation on the home front, would never 'condone'. Overall, a great film from both an entertainment and a historical perspective.

Andrew Boone Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger were one of the great director-writer teams in the history of cinema (Ozu and Noda being possibly their only superiors; others come to mind, though they have smaller bodies of work -- Losey and Pinter, certainly Antonioni and Guerra, or De Sica and Guerra, maybe Lean and Coward). When they first began collaborating, Powell was the director, and Pressburger the writer, and although in time they would come to share those responsibilities to some extent, this more or less remained the nature of their partnership until it ended in 1957."One of Our Aircraft Is Missing" is the duo's fourth collaboration; however, it is the first film officially by The Archers, the production company started by Powell and Pressburger for this film. Prior to this one, they had worked together on three feature films, for which Powell was the only credited director and Pressburger the only credited writer of the two. Those films were "The Spy in Black", "Contraband" (a.k.a. "Blackout"), and "49 Parallel". "One of Our Aircraft Is Missing" marks the first time that both the directing credits and the writing credits were shared between them, a trend that would continue for the remaining extent of their working relationship. These early efforts by Powell and Pressburger are not especially good, and are by no means their best work. Formally, they're pretty flat, utilizing the plain, minimalistic, realist aesthetic that was popular in British cinema at the time. In terms of content, they're lacking in thematic depth, and they're highly propagandistic. There's not much to praise in these films, except that we can see the beginnings of the duo's gift for storytelling that would eventually elevate them to the great filmmakers we now know them to be.Powell had been directing films since the beginning of the '30s. I haven't been able to find many of those early films from before his days with Pressburger, but the one I did find -- his 1934 film, "The Fire Raisers" -- was superior to anything else I've seen from that period in British cinema, including Hitchcock's work from that time. By 1939, when Powell and Pressburger teamed up for their first effort, a spy thriller called "The Spy in Black", the war was breaking out, and this called for an influx of propaganda into British cinema. As degrading as that would inevitably be to the quality of their films, Powell and Pressburger felt it their duty to use the tools available to them to serve the cause they believed in, and to help in some small way to win the global war against fascism. I can't possibly blame them for that, but it is worth noting that these films, including "One of Our Aircraft Is Missing", are overtly propagandistic, and that will certainly be frustrating at times for any unbiased, unprejudiced viewer.Unfortunately, even outside of the propaganda element, there's just not that much to say about "One of Our Aircraft Is Missing", except that it's neither a good nor a bad film. It's similar to Powell and Pressburger's previous collaboration, "49th Parallel", in many ways. "49th Parallel" was a British film about Canada. It was a love letter to Canada intended to encourage a cross-cultural connection between the two wartime allies. "One of Our Aircraft Is Missing" does the same thing, except instead of Canada, it is the Netherlands this time. Both films feature Eric Portman, a quality actor.Bernard Miles is another familiar face in the film. He was a minor British actor that has popped up in many of the films I've seen from this era (he had small roles in "The Spy in Black", "The Lion Has Wings", and "Contraband", and was later in a couple of David Lean films, "In Which We Serve" and "Great Expectations", as well as Hitchcock's American remake of "The Man Who Knew Too Much"). Also keep an eye out for a young Peter Ustinov, as the priest. "One of Our Aircraft Is Missing" and "The Spy in Black" are the weakest films that I've seen by Powell and Pressburger (unless you include their short film, "The Volunteer", also from the war years). "49th Parallel" is a slightly better film, as is "Contraband", with its levity and wit, but this stretch of propaganda work by Powell and Pressburger is certainly the weakest period in their otherwise impressive oeuvre. It's not until their fifth collaboration, "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp", that we see the legitimately impressive Powell and Pressburger cinema that would become their standard of quality from that point forward (again, barring "The Volunteer", their sixth film). "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" was the last of their feature propaganda films. Their seventh collaboration, "A Canterbury Tale", begins to break away from that irritatingly patriotic mode of filmmaking. While it certainly retains some of the propaganda elements from their previous films, it begins to see them liberated from the necessity to make those kinds of films, and that was a big step forward for their cinema.And yet, even these early films, from before Powell and Pressburger truly hit their stride with "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp", are enjoyable enough to justify a watch. "One of Our Aircraft Is Missing" serves its purpose as a propaganda film, and also is mildly satisfying as entertainment. It has a plot that is probably just engaging enough to keep the viewer's interest, and while there's no real substance of any kind, it is certainly not a bad film. It is simply a mediocre film. Those who aren't watching it as a Powell and Pressburger film, and who are simply watching it in its own right, may not find it especially fulfilling. However, fans of Powell and Pressburger's work (or other, similar films from the time period) will likely find it to be worth the time.RATING: 4.67 out of 10 stars

Terrell-4 One of Our Aircraft Is Missing, released in 1942, was the first film Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger made after formalizing their partnership as The Archers, with both taking equal credit for writing, producing and directing. In 1941 they had collaborated on The 49th Parallel. In 1943 they would make The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, the first of a series of masterpieces they created in the Forties. In practice, Powell directed, Pressburger wrote and did most of the producing, and they closely collaborated on every aspect of their films. The movie tells the story of the crewmen who bailed out of their bomber, B for Bertie, over The Netherlands in 1941. Even more, it tells the story of the Dutch men and women who endangered their own lives to give the crew shelter, to protect them and to pass them on to the North coast of Holland until rescue could be arranged. Bertie, a two-engine bomber, is returning from a run over Stuttgart when it's hit by flak. The plane loses an engine but the crew nurse the plane along until the second engine stutters out over Holland. The six-man crew bail out. Five land together; one is missing. There is John Haggard (Hugh Burden), the pilot and the youngest; Tom Earnshaw (Eric Portman), the co- pilot, a Yorkshire businessman before the war; Frank Shelley (Hugh Williams), the navigator, a West End actor with a famous wife; Bob Ashley (Emrys Jones), the radio operator, a soccer star; Geoff Hickman (Bernard Miles), the front gunner, an owner of an auto garage; and George Corbett (Godfrey Tearle), the rear gunner, at least twenty-five years older than the others, a knight, a member of parliament who immediately signed up with the Royal Air Force when war was declared. The crew, which is shortly reunited, now must trust the men and women of Holland. With one clever ruse after another they finally arrive at a house on the edge of the North Sea, owned by a woman who professes hatred of the English. She runs fishing boats and has the town's German detachment headquartered in her home. Eventually, in the middle of a British bombing attack, she will take them down to her basement, put them in a row boat, have one of her fishing boats meet them and take them to a German rescue buoy bobbing in the middle of the North Sea. There is a radio in the buoy. With a little luck the crew will be picked up by a British ship before a German ship arrives. She has done this before. At each step of the crew's journey through Holland they meet more men and women who will put their lives at risk for the crew. The Dutch know who they are and protect them. The Germans suspect there is a British crew about, but can't find them. We meet a burgomeister (Hay Petrie) whose young son plays a dangerous trick on the Germans, a young priest (Peter Ustinov), a brave church organist (Alec Clunes) and a frightened Dutch collaborator (Robert Helpmann). At each step the situations grow increasingly tense and dangerous. One of Our Aircraft Is Missing is a propaganda movie. It is precisely because Powell and Pressburger were so unwilling to do the ordinary and the expected that it holds up very well nearly 65 years later. For instance... --There is no phony derring do or heroics. The Dutch get the job done in threatening situations, but with bravery that is understated. The crew know their lives depend on these men and women and learn quickly to do as they are told. --We hardly see a German. And we never see a ranting, raving German officer or an enlisted goon. The German threat hangs over the movie, but it is made more effective by being subtle. --The class consciousness of many British war movies, with the officers brave and well bred and the working class enlisted men often used for comic relief, is muted. All members of the crew have their own characteristics. All are members of the same team. --The bravest of the Dutch, the most resourceful and the ones with the iciest nerves, are the women. From Else Meertens (Pamela Brown), a schoolteacher in a small community, to Jo de Vries (Googie Withers), who plays a risky double game with the Germans and owns the fishing boats, it is the women to whom the crew owe their salvation. --There is no musical score. What we hear is wind rushing by, boots marching, the creak of windmills, water lapping at a stone pier and, often, just silence. Only a director as sure of himself as Powell could get away without using music to cue us what to feel. --As tense as many of the situations are, Powell and Pressburger never shy away from humor in unlikely situations. It works because it allows us to know the characters better and to let us catch our breath before another dangerous scene starts. And they are sly. You have to be quick (or read a couple of reviews, which is what I did) to catch at least two puns they throw into the action. --The opening, and especially the closing, is typically quirky and satisfying. I won't even try to describe them. The movie was dedicated to the members of the Dutch resistance. We last see the crew getting ready to board their new bomber, this one a big four-engine job. Their target? Berlin.

didi-5 "...one of our aircraft is missing ..." is a well-cast and well-written piece from Powell and Pressburger, key film makers in 1940s Britain.The crew of B for Bertie find themselves lost in enemy territory and have to depend on the resources of others to get them to safety. The crew are played by some of the best actors of the time: Godfrey Tearle as the upper-class rear gunner; Eric Portman as the bluff Yorkshire co-pilot; Hugh Williams (father of 1970s actor Simon) as the refined navigator; Bernard Miles - better than usual - as the front gunner; High Burden as the pilot; and Emrys Jones as the Welsh sportsman who became the radio operator.In support are Googie Withers, P&P regular Pamela Brown, Joyce Redman, Robert Helpmann (as the quisling), Alec Clunes (father of Martin) as the church organist, and Peter Ustinov (in his film debut) as the priest.This film has been done as a drama-documentary so has a very realistic feel and look, pulling the viewer right into the action alongside the aircraft crew. It is less atmospheric than the 30s P&P films featuring Conrad Veidt and perhaps represented a more grounded style to their work before their Technicolor fantasies of the late 40s.