The Way to the Stars (1945)

hyped garbage

Fantastic!

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

If you are looking for a war film where black as black bad guys are dealt violent and bloody justice buy faultless good guys? This is not the film for you. In this film you find ordinary people making there way from one day to the next as best they can.The characters are colourful and varied. Though their emotional travels they develop and share their lessons openly with the viewer. There is no simple lessons or clean cut right or wrong. the characters are heroes not because of their battlefield antics, but by their personal interaction and support for each other.The Way to the Stars is directed at pleasing walk, with some clever camera angles and thoughtful pauses. The battle scenes are all subliminal. So while you do get to see all sorts of planes flying, landing and taking off. There is next to no combat action. This is ok, as the film is really here to explore the affect combat has on the characters, not the actual combat it's self. In this, it's very close to perfect.I'd recommend it to anyone other than a gore hound.

Excellent wartime film, designed as propaganda, but so well-made that it's a lasting British classic. John Mills and Michael Redgrave star as the fliers who become firm friends. We are let into their lives and loves and it's a warm film that feels genuine. Like the trial scene in Powell & Pressburger's magical "A Matter Of Life And Death" director Anthony Asquith also has something to stay about British-American relations during WW2, finding humour in the differences yet also heart. Mills may slip under people's radar because he's always so quiet and efficient, Redgrave is magnetic on screen. Very well edited and shot, it's one you must check out.

In 1940 trainee pilot Peter Penrose joins up with the RAF in an airbase in England and is taken under the wing of the more experienced Flight Lt David Archdale. Archdale is happy go lucky, a great pilot and has a young wife and new child. So when Archdale is killed in a sortie over enemy territory it causes Penrose to withdraw into himself – losing contact with his sweetheart and shutting himself off to be able to commit himself to the job.In 1942 the RAF mostly move off the field to be replaced by the Americans who come to be stationed with Penrose and a few other officers. His pain is only one of the troubled interactions and losses to be suffered during this war.This film is the third film from Asquith that I have seen in the last 24 hours – I didn't know he directed them all, I just had them lined up to see and it turned out to be a mini-season of his films. This film opens with a wonderfully atmospheric scene where the camera picks over the bones (not literally) of the now deserted airbase before we jump back in time to see the stories behind the remains. This is a great opening and the rest of the film never really gets up to the same standard even though it does try to deliver a less flag waving look at the human side of the war. It tries to show how loss affects the other pilots (namely Penrose) and also how difficult 'normal' relationship were when so many people were dying; however it has dated badly and the people portrayed are much too stiff and proper. In fairness, at the time, even an honest film would have shied away from showing the pilots really struggling with emotions, but even still the film is certainly not a heroic propaganda piece.The lack of real emotion means that the story itself comes across as rather stiff and, as a result, can occasionally lose the audience – not having any excitement in it to cover the emotional involvement that it lacks. The message is honourable but it has been done better recently simply because the emotion is more relatable and tangible; I support the idea of the stiff upper lip and all that, but in the film's private moments it should have let this drop to show more of the real people. Aside from this, a large section of the film seems to be more about cementing UK/US relations than about any specific story as it is filled with 'oh look how funny are differences are' moments which are OK but hardly hilarious or anything special. The characters follow the script and are mostly upright people and genre clichés – however it is a good thing that they are not the 'perfect' soldiers of many other war films of the period.Without real characters to really work with the cast just deliver the best they can, many giving the same performances they have in plenty of other films like this. That is not necessarily a bad thing though as the cast features a lot of really well known names and faces. Mills is good and he is the one that manages to convey the inner hurt and emotional sacrifice the best; of course he never goes over the top or even sheds a tear but he does a lot with his facial expressions. Redgrave is a good casting choice and his familiarity as a leading man means that we feel his loss a lot more than if he had been a bit player brought in just to die. Montgomery is his replacement but in terms of acting he cannot do it – he is a bit too 'all-American' and unconvincing in his own skin. The support cast is mostly good and features many well known actors of the genre including John, Holloway, Howard, Radford, Owen and others.Overall this is a good film in what it tried to do and maybe at the time it worked really well surrounded by flag waving films of heroic sacrifice and espionage b-movies, but not the lack of tangible emotion has caused it to date quite badly. In some places emotion and feeling is apparent but mostly it is all too stiff and unconvincing, leaving the audience to a lot of the work. Still clever, interesting and worthy enough to be worth seeing, just don't expect it to be as impacting as more obvious modern war movies.

What an excellent film, with a cast that lifts it above other films made during WW2. Was there a British war film made that did not have John Mills starring in it? Many of the actors here went on to become familiar faces in film and British TV. The story-line and the absence of background music do make this film both nostalgic and entertaining.It may interest some that the 'Golden Lion' in the film does exist, it is a hotel in Northallerton, North Yorkshire. The street scenes were shot in nearby Bedale. I'm not sure which airfield was used, but it may have been one of the many bomber bases situated in this area, such as Leeming or Dishforth.