CINEMA: Air Lion

Last fortnight the British Lion, which since World War II began has been trying to roar like an airplane engine, took off with a movie glorifying Britain’s air defenses. It was called The Lion Has Wings. Conceived by Ian Dalrymple, who scripted The Citadel, edited by American William Hornbeck, produced by Alexander Korda at his Denham lot in twelve crowded days and nights, Britain’s first propaganda film of World War II was shown first to the Ministry of Information and the censors. Fearful of disclosing war secrets, they slashed out vast footage, mostly shots of balloon barrages, and the interiors of munitions factories. After that the okayed versions were ready to be shipped where the British Government thought they would do the most good—to the Dominions, the U. S., other neutral countries.

Critics previewed the picture in London an hour after an air-raid warning had put them in the right frame of mind. What they saw was a frank propaganda picture starring Ralph Richardson* as a Flight Commander, Merle Oberon as his Red Cross wife. But the actors had little to do, less to say. Interest was focused on the actual techniques of air fighting. High light was a re-enactment of the Kiel raid, showing the actual participants leaving and (some of them) returning. The film’s thesis: Britain has developed air defenses that can scatter the modern Invincible Armada—Nazi bombing planes.

Excellently made (with his own money, according to Producer Korda, though later the British Government bought it), the picture maintained a mounting tension as thrilling as its theme sound of droning airplane engines. But it also had a quiet humor. Sample: during the Kiel raid the navigator asked his pilot to “pick up Middleton” (a BBC lecturer who talks on gardening). Satisfied that Britons have forgotten none of the talent for first-rate propaganda they developed during World War I, the Ministry of Information announced that similar films on U-boats, convoys, a great military picture about the Maginot and Siegfried lines, were on its production list.

* Cinemactor Richardson is serving in the Fleet Air Arm. Supporting Actor Robert Douglas is in the Air Force, Anthony Bushell in the Welsh Guards.