The First of the Few
Release date: 1942-09-14
Votes: 39
Genres: War, Drama
This 1942 fictionalized biopic chronicles the true story of how two of the most remarkable men in aviation history - visionary Spitfire designer R.J. Mitchell and his test pilot Geoffrey Crisp - designed a streamlined monoplane that led to the development of the Spitfire.
Reviews
CinemaSerf
Leslie Howard had a hand in just about everything here, and has delivered quite a poignant story of a dedicated and visionary man who might just have a legitimate claim to really have helped stave off the Nazis. He portrays R.J. Mitchell, a man whose vision was as an aircraft designer. We were still using bi-planes at the time and though the engineering of flight was now well established, he was determined to push the boundaries. His bosses at British firm SuperMarine were nervous about the investments - especially when he came up with a plan for the aircraft equivalent of a onesie. He sticks to his guns though, and next thing he, with the help of his accomplished pilot "Geoffrey Crisp" (David Niven), is winning the Schneider Trophy and pushing speed records from 200+ mph to 400+ mph. All of this development is coming at a time when the Germans are ignoring the Versailles treaty and rearming. There are plenty of Britons pushing for a similar programme, especially the vocal Lady Lucy Houston (Toni Edgar-Bruce) who donates the not inconsiderable sum of £100,000 so he can work with Rolls-Royce to take it's embryonic "Merlin" engine and fit it to a nimble fighter aircraft - the "Spitfire". Though it is Howard who takes centre stage, I think it's actually Niven who works the best here as the enthusiastic pilot who manages to motivate his friend whilst helping to manage his increasingly obsessive behaviour alongside wife Diana (Rosamund John). There's a sense of excitement as their peacetime racing enterprises illustrate the pre-eminence of this British team and then a sense of accruing menace as they realise those across the channel were playing nice whilst looking to Hermann Goering to fund an expansive programme of military Messerschmidt production. It does run a little to sentiment towards the end, but there is ample action, a bit of mischief and a lively score from William Walton make for a slightly rose-tinted but entertaining and sometimes quite informative watch.
Movie Recommendation
I'll See You in My Dreams2015-05-15A sudden loss disrupts Carol’s orderly life, propelling her into the dating world for the first time in 20 years. Finally living in the present tense, she finds herself swept up in not one, but two unexpected relationships that challenge her assumptions about what it means to grow old.More...
The Scarlet Pimpernel1934-12-2018th century English aristocrat Sir Percy Blakeney leads a double life. He appears to be merely the effete aristocrat, but in reality is part of an underground effort to free French nobles from Robespierre's Reign of Terror.More...
Goodbye2022-10-07After a mother's sudden death, chaos and grief collide when four adult siblings return to their traditional father's home for the funeral.More...
The Ten Commandments1956-10-05Escaping death, a Hebrew infant is raised in a royal household to become a prince. Upon discovery of his true heritage, Moses embarks on a personal quest to reclaim his destiny as the leader and liberator of the Hebrew people.More...
The Great Dictator1940-10-15Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime.More...
The Blues Brothers1980-06-16Jake Blues, just released from prison, puts his old band back together to save the Catholic home where he and his brother Elwood were raised.More...
Us2019-03-14Husband and wife Gabe and Adelaide Wilson take their kids to their beach house expecting to unplug and unwind with friends. But as night descends, their serenity turns to tension and chaos when some shocking visitors arrive uninvited.More...
Weekend at Bernie's1989-07-05Two young insurance corporation employees try to pretend that their murdered employer is alive by puppeteering his dead body, leading a hitman to attempt to track him down to finish him off.More...
Oldboy2003-11-21With no clue how he came to be imprisoned, drugged and tortured for 15 years, a desperate man seeks revenge on his captors.More...
Green Book2018-11-16Tony Lip, a bouncer in 1962, is hired to drive pianist Don Shirley on a tour through the Deep South in the days when African Americans, forced to find alternate accommodations and services due to segregation laws below the Mason-Dixon Line, relied on a guide called The Negro Motorist Green Book.More...
GoodFellas1990-09-12The true story of Henry Hill, a half-Irish, half-Sicilian Brooklyn kid who is adopted by neighbourhood gangsters at an early age and climbs the ranks of a Mafia family under the guidance of Jimmy Conway.More...
Joker2019-10-01During the 1980s, a failed stand-up comedian is driven insane and turns to a life of crime and chaos in Gotham City while becoming an infamous psychopathic crime figure.More...
The Holdovers2023-10-27A curmudgeonly instructor at a New England prep school is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually, he forms an unlikely bond with one of them — a damaged, brainy troublemaker — and with the school’s head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam.More...
Interstellar2014-11-05The adventures of a group of explorers who make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.More...
My Neighbor Totoro1988-04-16Two sisters move to the country with their father in order to be closer to their hospitalized mother, and discover the surrounding trees are inhabited by Totoros, magical spirits of the forest. When the youngest runs away from home, the older sister seeks help from the spirits to find her.More...
Titanic1997-11-18101-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater tells the story of her life aboard the Titanic, 84 years later. A young Rose boards the ship with her mother and fiancé. Meanwhile, Jack Dawson and Fabrizio De Rossi win third-class tickets aboard the ship. Rose tells the whole story from Titanic's departure through to its death—on its first and last voyage—on April 15, 1912.More...
Rear Window1954-08-01A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.More...
Cleaner2007-09-11Single father and former cop Tom Cutler has an unusual occupation: he cleans up death scenes. But when he's called in to sterilize a wealthy suburban residence after a brutal shooting, Cutler is shocked to learn he may have unknowingly erased crucial evidence, entangling himself in a dirty criminal cover-up.More...
Beverly Hills Cop1984-12-05Fast-talking, quick-thinking Detroit street cop Axel Foley has bent more than a few rules and regs in his time, but when his best friend is murdered, he heads to sunny Beverly Hills to work the case like only he can.More...
Top Gun: Maverick2022-05-21After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators, and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell finds himself training a detachment of TOP GUN graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen.More...
Similar Movies
Walk the Line
2005-09-13A chronicle of country music legend Johnny Cash's life, from his early days on an Arkansas cotton farm to his rise to fame with Sun Records in Memphis, where he recorded alongside Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins.Our Miss Fred
1972-12-14Danny La Rue stars in this 1970s drag comedy as Fred Wimbush, a Shakespearean actor who is drafted into WWII and is appearing in a camp show in France when the Nazis advance. Unless he continues in his female costume, Fred is certain to be shot as a spy. The risque gags and double entendres fly as he attempts to make his escape in the company of a troupe of Girl Guides.Silent Barricade
1949-05-06A fiction piece centered around the Czech resistance to the Nazis.Back Home
2001-10-22The war in Europe is over, but the one at home has only just begun. The Second World War is ending and throughout Britain, evacuees are returning home to their families - but not the families they remember. Like so many other women, Peggy’s life has been transformed by the war. Living and working with good friends, she is happier than she has been for years. Yet Peggy’s life is not the only one changed by the war. Her daughter, Rusty, has just returned from the U.S., where she has been living as an evacuee for the last five years. After so long abroad, her home in England has become unrecognizable. Just as Peggy begins to restore normal family bonds, her husband returns from the war, damaged and desperate to make everything as it was before. Adapted from the novel by Michelle Magorian, author of Goodnight, Mister Tom, Back Home is the story of a family who struggle to make sense of their new lives in a world irrevocably altered by the far-reaching effects of war.The Lamp Still Burns
1943-11-29A tribute to the important work of female nurses during World War II.The Tin Drum
1979-05-02Oskar Matzerath is a very unusual boy. Refusing to leave the womb until promised a tin drum by his mother, Agnes, Oskar is reluctant to enter a world he sees as filled with hypocrisy and injustice, and vows on his third birthday to never grow up. Miraculously, he gets his wish. As the Nazis rise to power in Danzig, Oskar wills himself to remain a child, beating his tin drum incessantly and screaming in protest at the chaos surrounding him.The Marriage of Maria...
1979-03-23Maria marries a young soldier in the last days of World War II, only for him to go missing in the war. She must rely on her beauty and ambition to navigate the difficult post-war years alone.Pearl Harbor
2001-05-21The lifelong friendship between Rafe McCawley and Danny Walker is put to the ultimate test when the two ace fighter pilots become entangled in a love triangle with beautiful Naval nurse Evelyn Johnson. But the rivalry between the friends-turned-foes is immediately put on hold when they find themselves at the center of Japan's devastating attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.The Last Emperor
1987-10-04A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.GoodFellas
1990-09-12The true story of Henry Hill, a half-Irish, half-Sicilian Brooklyn kid who is adopted by neighbourhood gangsters at an early age and climbs the ranks of a Mafia family under the guidance of Jimmy Conway.Basquiat
1996-08-09The brief life of Jean Michel Basquiat, a world renowned New York street artist struggling with fame, drugs and his identity.Downfall
2004-09-16In April of 1945, Germany stands at the brink of defeat with the Russian Army closing in from the east and the Allied Expeditionary Force attacking from the west. In Berlin, capital of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler proclaims that Germany will still achieve victory and orders his generals and advisers to fight to the last man. When the end finally does come, and Hitler lies dead by his own hand, what is left of his military must find a way to end the killing that is the Battle of Berlin, and lay down their arms in surrender.Soldier of Orange
1977-09-22The lives of Erik Lanshof and five of his closest friends take different paths when the German army invades the Netherlands in 1940: fight and resistance, fear and resignation, collaboration and high treason.Life Is Beautiful
1997-12-20A touching story of an Italian book seller of Jewish ancestry who lives in his own little fairy tale. His creative and happy life would come to an abrupt halt when his entire family is deported to a concentration camp during World War II. While locked up he tries to convince his son that the whole thing is just a game.Catch Me If You Can
2002-12-16A true story about Frank Abagnale Jr. who, before his 19th birthday, successfully conned millions of dollars worth of checks as a Pan Am pilot, doctor, and legal prosecutor. An FBI agent makes it his mission to put him behind bars. But Frank not only eludes capture, he revels in the pursuit.The Song of Names
2019-12-25A man searches for his childhood best friend, a Polish violin prodigy orphaned in the Holocaust, who vanished decades before on the night of his first public performance.The Grim Sleeper
2014-03-15Journalist Christine Pelisek helps law enforcement investigate the alleged serial killer known as the Grim Sleeper.Before the Fall
2004-07-04In 1942, Friedrich Weimer's boxing skills get him an appointment to a National Political Academy (NaPolA) – high schools that produce Nazi elite. Over his father's objections, Friedrich enrolls. During his year in seventh column,Friedrich encounters hazing, cruelty, death, and the Nazi code. His friendship with Albrecht, the ascetic son of the area's governor, is central to this education.Satyashodhak
2024-01-05The film follows the life of social reformer and writer Mahatma Jyotiba Phule.The Harmonists
1997-12-25Comedian Harmonists tells the story of a famous, German male sextet, five vocals and piano, the "Comedian Harmonists", from the day they meet first in 1927 to the day in 1934, when they become banned by the upcoming Nazis, because three of them are Jewish.