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Mosquito Squadron
1969 British war film directed by Boris Sagal From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Mosquito Squadron is a 1969 British war film made by Oakmont Productions, directed by Boris Sagal and starring David McCallum. The raid echoes Operation Jericho, a combined RAF–Maquis raid which freed French prisoners from Amiens prison in which the Mosquitos took part.
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The Royal Air Force (RAF) begins attacking German V-1 flying bomb installations in early summer of 1944. [N 1] When the de Havilland Mosquito fighter-bomber of Squadron Leader David "Scotty" Scott (David Buck) is shot down during a low-level bombing raid on a V-1 launching site, Scott and his navigator/bomb-aimer are assumed to have been killed. His wingman and friend, then-Flight Lieutenant (later Royal Canadian Air Force squadron leader) Quint Munroe (David McCallum) comforts Scott's wife, Beth (Suzanne Neve), and rekindle a romance from years earlier.
After a dangerous photo-reconnaissance mission over the Château de Charlon in Northern France, Munroe is ordered by Air Commodore Hufford (Charles Gray) to lead an attack against the château using a Highball type bouncing bomb). When Luftwaffe Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters bomb and strafe his airfield, they drop a film showing captured Gestapo prisoners, including a French Maquis resistance fighter and Allied prisoners, including Scott, are being held at the chateau as "human shields" to prevent their attack.
The mission proceeds, aimed at a tunnel to an underground Nazi factory on the château grounds where new "V-3" long-range, multi-stage rockets are being constructed. The prisoners, held in the chapel during Sunday morning mass, are concentrated in a single location and the RAF has coordinated with French resistance fighters to evacuate the prisoners after a Mosquito uses a Highball bomb to blow a hole in the wall closest to the chapel. However, Father Belaguere (Michael Anthony), a Catholic priest and resistance agent, is killed by an enraged German army officer, Oberleutnant Schack (Vladek Sheybal), for refusing to order the airmen back to their cells. The prisoners disarm Schack, push him outside, and barricade themselves in the chapel.
Munroe and Bannister drop their two Highballs, but both miss. After wingman Clark is shot down by a German fighter, they have just two bombs left. Bannister is shot down by flak and crashes into the tunnel, and his exploding bombs destroy the factory. Munroe blows apart the prison wall just as the Germans are about to breech the chapel door and machine-gun the prisoners. Most of the airmen escape with help from the resistance, but the senior RAF officer, Squadron Leader Neale (Bryan Marshall), is killed during the breakout. A second wave of Mosquitos obliterates the château complex with conventional bombs.
Munroe and Scott are briefly reunited after Munroe's Mosquito is brought down by flak. Scott, suffering from amnesia, sacrifices himself to stop a German tank with a captured Panzershreck, saving Munroe and the others, but not before Flight Sergeant Wiley Bunce (Nicky Henson), Munroe's navigator, is killed.
After rescue by submarine the survivors are repatriated and Munroe returns his RAF airbase. After being congratulated by his commanding officer, Wing Commander Penrose (Dinsdale Landen), as well as Air Commodore Hufford, he is reunited with Beth and her brother, Flight Lieutenant Douglas Shelton (David Dundas). Shelton is an ex-pilot who lost his right hand in combat and now serves as training officer of the squadron. He conceals from Beth that her husband had been one of the prisoners.
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Cast
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Production
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Although not a sequel, the film is similar to the 1964 film 633 Squadron and was influenced by it, even using some of its footage. The pre-title sequence (including the aforementioned opening music by Frank Cordell) was also taken from the WWII film Operation Crossbow. Bovingdon Airfield in Hertfordshire was a location for many scenes; four "flightworthy" de Havilland Mosquito aircraft, including RR299, which eventually crashed and much later was destroyed in July 1996, were based at the airfield. The "chateau" used is actually Minley Manor, near Farnborough in Hampshire, Southern England.
The Highball weapon featured was an actual development of Barnes Wallis's "dam-busting" Upkeep bomb, and the footage of Mosquitoes dropping Highballs on land is genuine WWII archive footage, although in the event Highball was never used in combat. Charles Gray's character mentions Barnes Wallis during his briefing, in such a way as to erroneously imply that the name was well known to the RAF personnel (Wallis was not publicly identified as the Upkeep inventor until after the War). The special Highball bombsight is also a genuine representation of the one used in combat.
The car driven by David McCallum is a 1935 Godsal V8 Corsica.
Soundtrack
The film features a memorable music score (starting with pounding bass drum beats to background the V-1 flying-bomb scenes) composed and conducted by Frank Cordell. Cordell's score was intended as a soundtrack album from United Artists Records that was never released until Film Score Monthly finally issued it on CD, paired with Cordell's score for Khartoum.[3]
Reception
Most reviewers concentrated on the low-budget production values, but the script and cast also received severe criticism from some quarters. In 1968, McCallum, attending a film festival in Nice, was quoted, “I’ve seen bongo films better than that Mosquito rubbish”.[4][failed verification]
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