Warbird Information Exchange

I don't know if this has been around yet but I stumbled across The First Of The Few yesterday. It was just put on Youtube 3 months ago. It is a 1942 British movie about the birth of the Spitfire. It stars Leslie Howard and David Niven. There is a bit of original footage of the Schneider Seaplanes where the Spitfire idea came from. The beginning of the movie is a little weak but it gets better as the story is told. The movie is an 1 hr and 53 minutes long. I found the story very interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK62o5I3QRg

Good catch. It's actually "The first of the few", and was released in the USA as "Spitfire", so some WIX members may be familiar with it under the latter title.

It's a wartime propaganda movie, with a few (hem) accurate and important historical elements (the now unique Supermarine S-4 footage) and much that has nothing to do with reality - Mitchell was nothing like Howard's portrayal, and the development of the Spitfire design in reality had little to nothing to do with what's shown in the film. (No to meeting Willy Messerschmitt, seagulls and working to death on the Spitfire's development.) The film, too, has a lot to do with developing the semi-religious cult that the Spitfire has become an icon for, particularly in the UK.

Good refs to some of that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_ ... Production

It's great fun, as long as you don't believe it!

Regards,

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

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JDK - thanks for the title correction.

I've been going down the Wiki list of WWII films that shows films from various counties. That is where I found it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_films

MM - thanks for the Dailymail link. The Lord Haw Haw connection was interesting.