*$* Battle of Britain Blu ray

The transfer is fine: It's no better than the earlier DVD edition, but yards ahead of the VHS. Since I've seen this so many times, I chose to listen to the commentary right out of the box. While director Guy Hamilton's comments were insightful, especially about his relationship with Adolf Galland, Bernie Williams(who was the production manager of the aerial unit) was all over the map. Perhaps he's had health problems or something, but he consistently identified Hawker Hurricanes as Spitfires and a Ju-52 as a "Stuka", and also called the Spanish Air Force Heinkel 111's "Messerschmidts". He also misnamed Joseph P Kennedy, Sr. as "Senior Joseph Kennedy"(maybe due to the time spent filming in Spain), as opposed to his correct title of "Bootlegger to the stars". Williams' gaffes were so consistently out there that I was very pleasantly surprised that his comments in the Disc 2 extras "A Film For The Few" and "Authenticity In The Air" were excellent. "A Film For The Few" was great, showing what had to be done to restore many of the aircraft.

Also on Disc 2 was a 1969 featurette "Battle For The Battle Of Britain", hosted by co-star Michael Caine(who was been born in Rotherhithe, an area badly hit by The Blitz), "Recollections Of An RAF Squadron Leader", with ex-Sqdn Ldr (Basil) Gerald Stapleton, an "Authenticity in the Air" featurette, and a gallery of "images From The Sky". We do get to see Air Marshal Keith Park visiting the film set(although why Douglas Bader goes unidentified is odd), and interviews with a number of ex-RAF types, most notably Peter Townsend, ex-equerry to HM The Queen and ex-fiance to Princess Margaret.

I'd give this a solid 4.5 stars, but since Amazon(in its infinite wisdom)only does whole stars, I've no problem nudging it up to 5. The acting's not great, but with this, it's more than that. One other thing is that though it was produced by an American firm, there's no attempt to overplay the US contribution. I love the USA, but the Brits damn near went it alone in those four months of 1940. For that, I give them 9.5 stars!!
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