What a remarkable person Douglas Bader was. Always a madcap, he joins the RAF in 1928 and becomes a perfect pilot but is unable to adhere to the norms and fill out the forms. On a dare, he engages in dangerous low-level aerobatics and smashes up his kite, which leads to two of his legs being amputated. Rather than be assigned to a desk job or accept a disability pension he resigns and takes some sort of mundane position that has all of the boredom of military paperwork with none of the excitement of flying. When the war comes along, he rejoins, undergoes flight school yet again, and is finally allowed to fly. His administrative skills are effective. He has no tolerance for red tape. And his combat exploits are heroic. He's shot down over France, captured, and manages to escape two or three times until he is ensconced in Colditz Castle.
There's an awe-inspiring story buried in Bader's biography but this film doesn't quite soar into it. Instead it's one socially acceptable formulaic scene after another. After his double amputation, Bader lies writhing with pain in his hospital bed. He's on the verge of dying but overcomes it by the sheer power of his will. Kenneth More, who is Bader, has shown a considerable range as an actor -- from comedy ("Doctor in the House") through thrillers ("The 39 Steps") to drama ("Sink the Bismark") -- and he's good here at registering pain. The problem is that the role of Douglas Bader is itself like a formulaic straight jacket. In the face of any challenge -- golf or the loss of his legs -- he's relentlessly cheerful, optimistic, and eager. He completely lacks the very human quality of self doubt. Of course, some of us have less of it than others, but Bader's character has none at all. He comes across as a modern Sardonicus, a mechanical smile etched into his face, stumbling about in robotic fashion on tin legs. This isn't to make fun of the man, but the way he's presented in this thoroughly routine biographical movie.
Bader's unfailingly headlong cheerfulness aside, the story is weak. A narrator is introduced at the beginning as an old friend of Bader's. He's about to tell us the story. This is "Woody" Woodhall, with whom Bader exchanges a few winks and wisecracks before he disappears from the movie except for one more late appearance. Having someone tell a friend's story is one of those devices a writer falls back on when his efforts flag. But the fact that it's a common device is minor compared to the fact that it's not used well enough to be believable.
Not that Woody's narration adds much to an already iron-bound dialog. "Hour after hour, for four endless days, the nurses fought for his life and in the end they won." I guess I've bad mouthed this movie enough. It's not as terrible as I've made it sound. Bad enough to generate an occasional wince, but it does neatly present some events while avoiding others that are overly familiar.
Example of such events. Bader's first trials with his prosthetic legs. He manages to take a few awkward steps by himself under the eyes of his medical tutors and the mechanism of stepping is explained to him. Without a knee, the artificial leg must be "flipped" ahead with a sharp motion of the remaining thigh. And when asked to turn around, he finds he can't, and, having had the practice of artificial legs explained to us, we can understand why. How easy it would have been to have Bader sitting in his wheelchair for a year, overcome with despair, until he wills himself to stand up and -- "LOOK! I can WALK!" (Everybody gawks and applauds.) But no. It's all handled matter-of-factly and is all the more interesting for it. There aren't many scenes of aerial combat but they're innovatively handled too.
I only wish, the material being as inherently gripping as it is, that it had been done better, not as a tribute to a man compelled to overcome challenges -- Bader's own story has taken care of that -- but as a persuasively realistic picture of a man with whom we're able to identify. You know, "That's what I would have done if I'd been better than I am."
There's an awe-inspiring story buried in Bader's biography but this film doesn't quite soar into it. Instead it's one socially acceptable formulaic scene after another. After his double amputation, Bader lies writhing with pain in his hospital bed. He's on the verge of dying but overcomes it by the sheer power of his will. Kenneth More, who is Bader, has shown a considerable range as an actor -- from comedy ("Doctor in the House") through thrillers ("The 39 Steps") to drama ("Sink the Bismark") -- and he's good here at registering pain. The problem is that the role of Douglas Bader is itself like a formulaic straight jacket. In the face of any challenge -- golf or the loss of his legs -- he's relentlessly cheerful, optimistic, and eager. He completely lacks the very human quality of self doubt. Of course, some of us have less of it than others, but Bader's character has none at all. He comes across as a modern Sardonicus, a mechanical smile etched into his face, stumbling about in robotic fashion on tin legs. This isn't to make fun of the man, but the way he's presented in this thoroughly routine biographical movie.
Bader's unfailingly headlong cheerfulness aside, the story is weak. A narrator is introduced at the beginning as an old friend of Bader's. He's about to tell us the story. This is "Woody" Woodhall, with whom Bader exchanges a few winks and wisecracks before he disappears from the movie except for one more late appearance. Having someone tell a friend's story is one of those devices a writer falls back on when his efforts flag. But the fact that it's a common device is minor compared to the fact that it's not used well enough to be believable.
Not that Woody's narration adds much to an already iron-bound dialog. "Hour after hour, for four endless days, the nurses fought for his life and in the end they won." I guess I've bad mouthed this movie enough. It's not as terrible as I've made it sound. Bad enough to generate an occasional wince, but it does neatly present some events while avoiding others that are overly familiar.
Example of such events. Bader's first trials with his prosthetic legs. He manages to take a few awkward steps by himself under the eyes of his medical tutors and the mechanism of stepping is explained to him. Without a knee, the artificial leg must be "flipped" ahead with a sharp motion of the remaining thigh. And when asked to turn around, he finds he can't, and, having had the practice of artificial legs explained to us, we can understand why. How easy it would have been to have Bader sitting in his wheelchair for a year, overcome with despair, until he wills himself to stand up and -- "LOOK! I can WALK!" (Everybody gawks and applauds.) But no. It's all handled matter-of-factly and is all the more interesting for it. There aren't many scenes of aerial combat but they're innovatively handled too.
I only wish, the material being as inherently gripping as it is, that it had been done better, not as a tribute to a man compelled to overcome challenges -- Bader's own story has taken care of that -- but as a persuasively realistic picture of a man with whom we're able to identify. You know, "That's what I would have done if I'd been better than I am."