SHIPS WITH WINGS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 168, 11 September 1942, Page 9

SHIPS WITH WINGS

(BEFJ

‘THE first and most obvious criticism invited by Ships With Wings is that both as propaganda and as entertainment it has been spoiled for

want of a ha’porth of tar. The Ark Royal (travelling incognito as the Formidable) is the scene of most of the action and as the most publicised ship in the Royal Navy gives (or should I say gave?) the film a flying start at the box office. The cast — John Clements, Leslie Banks, Jane Baxter, Ann Toddis quite a good one (though Ann Todd gave me the fantods) and anyone would be entitled to regard the stage as set for something extra-special. But what B.E.F. has produced falls woefully short of legitimate expectations. The story is by turns wildly improbable, glutinously sentimental, unnecessarily melodramatic and four-feathery. (At one stage I found myself murmuring "Films like Four Feathers flop together," but it would be more accurate to say that films which rely on the expiation motif sans benefit of good acting, direction and technicolour are bound to flop in this realistic day and age.)

And I can’t imagine why, with thousands of feet of splendid action newsreels to draw on, B.E.F. will persist in insulting the intelligence of audiences with sequences employing model ships in tanks and whole flights of cardboard aeroplanes sliding down wires. That kind of technique belongs properly to the puppet-show and the animated cartoon department and when there are shots of ships in action, ships being bombed, aerial dogfights ef al. to be had for tho asking from the newsreel and docu. mentary libraries, it seems short-sighted not to use them. Certainly one would have to be very short-sighted to be fooled by B.E.F.’s faking. The most dramatic parts of the film are, indeed, those which did come from newsreels or in which the actors are Fleet Air Arm pilots and their machines, and there are just enough of such shots to keep the show on its feet. But only just As the Italians discovered at Taranto, ships with wings can lay eggs-but not the kind of egg laid by this vehicle. Which sounds a little mixed biologically, but you get me, don’t you?