''Eagles Over London'' ( it, La battaglia d'Inghilterra), is a " macaroni combat"

war film War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about navy, naval, air force, air, or army, land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been strongly associated with the 20th century. The fateful nature of battle s ...

from 1969 directed by Enzo G. Castellari.Severin Films DVD Case, 2009. Last accessed: September, 2009. It starred

Frederick Stafford Frederick Stafford (11 March 1928 – 28 July 1979) was a Czechoslovak-born actor. Born Friedrich Strobel von Stein, he spoke fluent Czech, German, English, French and Italian, and was a leading man in European spy-movies. Biography Early life ...

Van Johnson Charles Van Dell Johnson (August 25, 1916 – December 12, 2008) was an American film, television, theatre and radio actor. He was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer during and after World War II. Johnson was described as the embodiment o ...

and

Francisco Rabal Francisco Rabal Valera (8 March 1926 – 29 August 2001), better known as Paco Rabal, was a Spanish actor, director, and screenwriter born in Águilas, a town in the south-western part of the province of Murcia, Spain. Throughout his career, Raba ...

Plot

During the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940, a team of German saboteurs assume the identities of dead British soldiers and are transported to England. Their first objective is to cripple British air defences by destroying radar stations. Though the identities and whereabouts of the saboteurs are unknown, a team of British soldiers is set up to track them down and abort their mission. While the

Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain, also known as the Air Battle for England (german: die Luftschlacht um England), was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defende ...

rages overhead, the final confrontation takes place as the German team are about to blow up the

RAF Fighter Command RAF Fighter Command was one of the commands of the Royal Air Force. It was formed in 1936 to allow more specialised control of fighter aircraft. It served throughout the Second World War. It earned near-immortal fame during the Battle of Brita ...

control centre.

Production

When Enzo G. Castellari finished the film '' Kill Them All and Come Back Alone'', he asked the producers what their next film would be. They replied a war epic about the

with the

Harry Saltzman Herschel Saltzman (; – ), known as Harry Saltzman, was a Canadian theatre and film producer. He is best remembered for co-producing the first nine of the ''James Bond'' film series with Albert R. Broccoli. He lived most of his life in Den ...

version Version may refer to: Computing * Software version, a set of numbers that identify a unique evolution of a computer program * VERSION (CONFIG.SYS directive), a configuration directive in FreeDOS Music * Cover version * Dub version * Remix * ''Ve ...

yet to be released. Enzo thought that was a great idea but the producers had their sights on

Alberto De Martino Alberto De Martino (12 June 1929 – 2 June 2015) was an Italian film director and screenwriter. Born in Rome, De Martino started as a child actor and later returned to the cinema where worked as a screenwriter, director and dubbing supervis ...

directing. The producers stipulated that stock footage of the actual Battle of Britain needed to be used in the film and that it should be used in a split-screen method. They asked Enzo if he would direct the special effects sequences and cut it with the stock footage using a split-screen method. Enzo had never heard of "split screen" so he was shown the American films '' The Thomas Crown Affair'' and ''

The Boston Strangler The Boston Strangler is the name given to the murderer of 13 women in the Boston, Massachusetts, area during the early 1960s. The crimes were attributed to Albert DeSalvo based on his confession, details revealed in court during a separate case, ...

''. He shot the effects sequences and mixed it using a triple split screen method. An example is having a British plane shoot on the left side, having a German plane getting hit on the right side, and having stock footage in the middle. When shown this split-screen footage, the producers were so impressed they decided to have Enzo direct the entire picture. After this, Enzo sat down with a writing partner for a week to rewrite the overlong script to make it more action-oriented and less of a "soap opera"."A Conversation with Enzo Castellari and Quentin Tarantino Part 2", Severin Films DVD, 2009. Last accessed: September, 2009. The film is entirely fictional and historically inaccurate. For instance, the RAF never shot down 94 German planes in one day; London was never "blitzed" in one sortie by "1,000 planes"; and the RAF Control Centre was never attacked in any way. Actually, the Air Ministry building (Adastral House) was badly damaged by a bomb. 46 people were killed and at least 200 others suffered serious injuries with five members of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) killed on the upper floors of the Air Ministry). The director uses Messerschmitt Bf 109s (or near-replicas of them) as RAF "

Hawker Hurricane The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–40s which was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd. for service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was overshadowed in the public consciousness b ...

s", and Supermarine Spitfires as Luftwaffe "Bf 109s". The fictional "bombers" that are supposed to be Heinkel He 111 are in reality

CASA 2.111 The CASA 2.111 was a medium bomber derived from the Heinkel He 111 and produced in Spain under licence by Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA (CASA). The 2.111 models differed significantly in details from Heinkel's wartime He 111H design while using ...

similar planes built in Spain under licence.''Eagles Over London'' (Hong Kong edition), Severin Films DVD, 2011(?). Last accessed: April 2011.

Releases

Simitar Entertainment Simitar Entertainment, Inc. was an American media company that sold music, videos, DVDs, and computer software. The company specialized in compilation albums, special interest video, and urban media. Simitar also distributed its own label. His ...

released the film on VHS in 1994.

Echo Bridge Home Entertainment Echo Bridge Entertainment is an American independent distribution company. It acquires and distributes feature films, scripted and non-scripted series, documentaries, and children’s programming for home video, digital and television in the United ...

also released the film on VHS in 2001. Severin released the film for the first time ever in America on Region 0 DVD and Blu-ray in 2009. The film was released for Region 2 on 7 June 2010. Severin release is uncut International version but it is few minutes shorter than original Italian.

Reception

In a contemporary review, The ''

Monthly Film Bulletin ''The Monthly Film Bulletin'' was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 to April 1991, when it merged with '' Sight & Sound''. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those with ...

'' stated that the film "shows a glimmer of originality but it is sluggishly developed and peppered with desultory split-screen work" and "the action is efficiently mounted and apart from the appearance of some rather swarthy-looking British Tommies, wartime Britain looks slightly more authentic ..than the film's many nationalities might have led one to expect." In a retrospective review, ''

Sight & Sound ''Sight and Sound'' (also spelled ''Sight & Sound'') is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI). It conducts the well-known, once-a-decade ''Sight and Sound'' Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time, ongoing ...

'' noted the plotline of Nazi saboteurs active in Britain "has been used in films from Ealing's ''

Went the Day Well ''Went the Day Well?'' is a 1942 British war film adapted from a story by Graham Greene and directed by Alberto Cavalcanti. It was produced by Michael Balcon of Ealing Studios and served as unofficial propaganda for the war effort. The film shows ...

'' to '' The Eagle Has Landed'', but those movies lacked the formal flamboyance that Castellari brings to his material." The review concluded "It's Boy's Own stuff but it's carried off with such style that it never descends into kitsch."

Aftermath and influence

Roughly thirty percent of the film ''Eagles Over London'' was cut into the macaroni combat film '' From Hell to Victory''. Castellari said that he and his wife went to go see ''From Hell to Victory'' in theatres and it made him extremely upset that footage he shot was reused in another film.

References

External links

* {{Use British English, date=August 2010 1969 films 1960s Italian-language films English-language Italian films 1969 war films Films directed by Enzo G. Castellari Films scored by Francesco De Masi Italian aviation films Battle of Britain films Macaroni Combat films 1960s Italian films