Home > The Dam Busters (movie)

The film has two distinct halves: firstly the story of engineer Wallis and his struggle to develop his bouncing bomb, and secondly the story of Gibson and his crew as they train for and then take part in the mission: a bombing raid on the Ruhr dams in Germany, which would cripple German heavy industry. The bombers had to fly extremely low (down to 60 feet), in order to release the "bouncing bombs" in a precise timing, so they would hit and burst open the dams.

The flight sequences that take up the last half of the movie were filmed using real Avro LancasterThe Avro Lancaster was a four-engined World War II bomber aircraft made initially by Avro for the Royal Air Force. First used in 1942, together with the Handley-Page Halifax it was the main heavy bomber of both the RAF and the RCAF, and the most heavily u bombers supplied by the RAF. The aircraft, four Mk. 7s, had to be taken out of storage and specially modified, and cost £130 per hour to run, which amounted to a tenth of the film's costs. (An American cut was made more dramatic by depicting a plane flying into a hill and exploding. This version used stock Warner Brothers footage of a B-17 Flying Fortress as opposed to a Lancaster.)

The Upper Derwent ValleyThe Upper Derwent Valley is an area of the Peak District National Park in Derbyshire, England. Its most significant features are the Derwent Dams ( Derwent Dam and Howden Dam) which form Howden Reservoir, Derwent Reservoir and Ladybower Reservoir. In 1899 in DerbyshireDerbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England, which boasts some of England's most attractive hill and mountain scenery. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps wit, EnglandEngland is the largest, the most populous, and the most densely populated of the four " Home Nations" which make up the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK). Occupying the south-eastern portion of the island of Great Britain, England (the actual test area for the real raids) doubled as the Ruhr valley for the film.

The flight sequence is heavily quoted in Star WarsStar Wars retitled Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in 1981, is the original (and in chronological story order, the fourth) film in the Star Wars series of movies by George Lucas. It was released on May 25, 1977, and was re-released, sometimes with signif (being the basis for the Death StarThe Death Star is a moon-sized planetoid military space station in the fictional Star Wars universe. Description The Galactic Empire's ultimate terror weapon, the Death Stars were battle stations several hundred kilometers in diameter and mounting a direc trench run), and action is often copied scene for scene. Even some dialogue is repeated. Both films require a bomb to be fired at a very specific target with a small window of error.

The scenes with Gibson's black labrador dog, "Nigger", appear in Pink Floyd's The Wall film. These scenes were cut from the ITV's last showing of The Dam Busters after their previous broadcast received complaints for the use of the word nigger. While the ITV has been criticised for censoring historical fact, and maligning the impact of a moving cinematic sequence in the process, the edited showing received many fewer complaints than the previous un-edited broadcast.

The Dam Busters has been praised as one of the greatest war films of all time, but also criticised as glorifying war and destruction. Music commissioned for the film, 'The Dam Busters March', by Eric Coates has also remained popular. In 2004 the magazine Total Film named The Dam Busters the 43rd greatest British film of all time.

Rumors have circulated that Mel Gibson is directing a remake of The Dam Busters starring Liam Neeson. There have been references to filming taking place in western England as of 2004.