Cinema
The Dam Busters
Michael Anderson · 1955
Synopsis
Spring 1942. The engineer Barnes Wallis is looking for a way to reach the great dams of the Ruhr, which are protected by anti-torpedo nets. At home, in his garden, he makes marbles bounce across the water of a basin: he imagines a bomb that would skip over the surface of the lake, above the nets, as far as the wall of the dam. The ministries refuse him again and again, and the idea seems destined never to leave the garden.
Context
The film is based on Paul Brickhill's book published in 1951 and on the account left by the squadron's commander, Guy Gibson. The bomb, weighing over four tonnes, and its backward spin were still covered by secrecy in 1955: the film's model shows nothing of it, and the test footage, which shows a different device, was retouched frame by frame to hide its shape. The ministry lent four bombers, charged by the flying hour, which were scrapped the following year. It was the biggest British box-office success of 1955, and the attack sequence inspired, twenty-two years later, the final run of an American science-fiction film, as an acknowledged homage.
Who it is for
Two hours four minutes, in English and in black and white. The film follows first the development of the bomb, then the squadron charged with dropping it.
Prizes and reception
The name of the squadron's dog, a racial slur, was kept in 2018 in the restored version, in the name of historical accuracy.
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