Rating: 
Summary: A film that makes you feel your flying with them
Review: I was 9 years old when I first saw 633 Squadron. I think I must have watched it 20 or more times. My greatest joy was when I have had the priviledge of working with its director, Walter Grauman. To this day, he is still an active Producer/Director. I feel that 633 Squadron came off so well, because Walter was a highly decorated B-24 pilot in World War 11,flying over 24 missions, and bringing back his aircraft once, with one engine fully ablaze, with nazi planes following and firing at him. If you're going to choose a director to shoot a WW11 bombing raid, you couldn't pick a better qualified man. I believe you can feel his emotions throughout the film. He's stated that he received unbelievable cooperation from everyone involved with the film, including veteran pilots, townsfolk,etc. They went out of their way to make this exciting project work, and one can feel the sincerity, the pride and the glory of the Brits who fought the evil that threatened the world.
Rating:
Summary: Plywood
Review: I was always under the impression that since many of the pre-war airframes had been built by furniture manufacturers; and that from the very beginning of aircraft specialist joinery firms had been involved. It seemed logical to use the capacity of the furniture and piano manufacturing industry to fabricate an aircraft from plywood.This aircraft also used the renowned Merlin engine designed by Henry Royce as PV-12; and was a very fast, lightly-armed fighter-bomber which later became an aerial reconnaissance and pathfinder aircraft to guide in heavy bombers to target..."It was said that the 2 man twin engined Mosquito could carry the same bomb load to Berlin as the 4 engined Flying Fortress with its crew of 11. It also did it quicker and used less fuel... the Mosquitoes in the film were photo-reconnaissance models built late in the war. I suppose it would have been quite unique to have an American commanding an RAF Squadron too; especially as those Americans who did fly with the RAF as volunteers came through Canada as the USA was officially 'neutral' until Hitler declared war on the US on 11th December, 1941.
Rating: 
Summary: 633 Squadron
Review: If your'e English the first time you saw this movie was probably on TV whilst a Test Cricket match was rained off. This film must have been kept on permanent stand-by by the BBC. I consequently saw this for the first time when I was quite young, probably eight or nine years old. I can remember being just blown away by the flying scenes and it's probably because of this movie that the Mosquito is one of my favourite WWII aeroplanes. The plot is predictable and it takes a while to get going but hey your can always fast forward to the real star of the film the ubiquitous 'Wooden Wonder'. Some of the other reviewers have got a point about the parallels with the Star Wars death star, I just can't imagine George Lucas having ever seen this though???
Rating:
Summary: just like star wars
Review: Is it just me, or is their a striking similarity between the concept in this movie and the "death star attack in Star Wars"? Fly down a narrow,heavily guarded passage to a target you can't bomb directly and hurt!
Rating:
Summary: A MUST SEE FOR WW2 FILM FANS.....
Review: It's already been said in other reviews posted here, but I just cannot overlook adding to it... Cliff Robertson plays WING CDR. ROY GRANT, the American commander of an RAF light bomber squadron who are given one extremely urgent mission: destroy a Nazi factory helping develop a weapon (an A-bomb?) that may threaten the pending Allied invasion of Europe. Working closely with the squadron is George Chakiris as LIEUT. ERIK BERGMAN, a leader of the Norweigan Linge. Those aerial sequences involving the actual Mosquito aircraft are a sight to behold and the special effects model use are adequate as well (remember this is 1964 vs. 1999). The Ron Goodwin score is a catchy one and keeps you glued as the climatic bombing mission unfolds. (This is probably where George Lucas got the idea for the Death Star finale in STAR WARS). Overall, I say this film is a must for those who love other mid-60's WW2 films like VON RYAN'S EXPRESS, THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN, THE BRIDGE AT REMAGAN.
Rating:
Summary: 633 Squadron gave their lives for D-Day
Review: Loved this film when I first saw it as a 9-yo ww2 airplane-crazy kid at a neigbors house, none of the limited special-effects taint it then, anymore than they did 'The Battle of Britain'. This movie is based on a book of the same name, I've never read the book, cant name the author, but the mission itself is an imaginary-one, but does reflect bits and pieces of actual Mosquito-bomber exploits in ww2: the mid-film raid on the Oslo Gestapo building to kill their own captured Norwegian-resistance friend before he can give it up under torture was resembling a job Mosquitos did in both Oslo and Copenhagen Denmark-tragically also hitting a school and killing many Danish school-children in that otherwise successful raid. One other famous Mosquito exploit was the aptly-named 'Jericho' raid on Amiens medieval prison in the French countryside, to blow -down the walls and release French resistance fighters held by the Nazis.This raid is imitated in the later film 'Mosquito Squadron', with David McCallum, which is a perhaps inferior film to this one, and re-uses some of 633's canned Mosquito flying footage.
The film is a fair-classic of the genre and like the even more atmospheric and heady (and true-fact) 'Dambusters', has a memorable and rousing score, this one by Ron Goodwin, who wrote many scores for war-films-this would be the best one, and is worth checking-out on your legal pay music download site, frankly(winks) The comments by people here concerning the special-effects are true,as Ive attacked to some degree the special-effects of 'the Battle of Britain', 633 has more excuse, would have been far less ambitious lower budget. But the twin-merlin Mosquitos are as gloriously acoustically and visually British as Dambusters Lancs and 'Battle of Brits' Spits and Hurricanes.
And '12 Oclock High's Fortresses, one might add. George Shakira's casting as a Norwegian Resistance fighter(or any Norwegian!)goes down as one of the casting oddities of celluloid history.
If you havent seen it before, youll like it, if you love good airplanes, airplane footage and sounds, it'll probably actually get you high. The remarks I saw here about the rationale of the Mosquitos wooden construction being about shortage of aluminium, well, cant rule it out totally,without loking into it first, but would point out that the specially glued plywood skin obviated the need for 100s of flush-rivets as metal-skin planes have, resulting in drag,and loss of speed, and this aircraft was conceived to be fast enough to evade enemy fighters by speed alone, without the need for defensive or offensive guns, which the bomber and recon glass-nosed Mosquitos actually were unarmed, and Luftwaffe found it almost impossible at first and always difficult to intercept them, even when they could see them comiing. Despite being wooden, they were also regarded as a remarkably sturdy aircraft that frequently returned with major battle damage. The Mosquito was also one of the few twin-engined planes which was claimed could not merely fly on one engine, but even climb comfortably with one engine stopped and 'feathered'.
Rating:
Summary: Give these planes the Oscar...
Review: Loved this film when I first saw it as a 9-yo ww2 airplane-crazy kid at a neigbors house, none of the limited special-effects taint it then, anymore than they did 'The Battle of Britain'. This movie is based on a book of the same name, I've never read the book, cant name the author, but the mission itself is an imaginary-one, but does reflect bits and pieces of actual Mosquito-bomber exploits in ww2: the mid-film raid on the Oslo Gestapo building to kill their own captured Norwegian-resistance friend before he can give it up under torture was resembling a job Mosquitos did in both Oslo and Copenhagen Denmark-tragically also hitting a school and killing many Danish school-children in that otherwise successful raid. One other famous Mosquito exploit was the aptly-named 'Jericho' raid on Amiens medieval prison in the French countryside, to blow -down the walls and release French resistance fighters held by the Nazis.This raid is imitated in the later film 'Mosquito Squadron', with David McCallum, which is a perhaps inferior film to this one, and re-uses some of 633's canned Mosquito flying footage.
The film is a fair-classic of the genre and like the even more atmospheric and heady (and true-fact) 'Dambusters', has a memorable and rousing score, this one by Ron Goodwin, who wrote many scores for war-films-this would be the best one, and is worth checking-out on your legal pay music download site, frankly(winks) The comments by people here concerning the special-effects are true,as Ive attacked to some degree the special-effects of 'the Battle of Britain', 633 has more excuse, would have been far less ambitious lower budget. But the twin-merlin Mosquitos are as gloriously acoustically and visually British as Dambusters Lancs and 'Battle of Brits' Spits and Hurricanes.
And '12 Oclock High's Fortresses, one might add. George Shakira's casting as a Norwegian Resistance fighter(or any Norwegian!)goes down as one of the casting oddities of celluloid history.
If you havent seen it before, youll like it, if you love good airplanes, airplane footage and sounds, it'll probably actually get you high. The remarks I saw here about the rationale of the Mosquitos wooden construction being about shortage of aluminium, well, cant rule it out totally,without loking into it first, but would point out that the specially glued plywood skin obviated the need for 100s of flush-rivets as metal-skin planes have, resulting in drag,and loss of speed, and this aircraft was conceived to be fast enough to evade enemy fighters by speed alone, without the need for defensive or offensive guns, which the bomber and recon glass-nosed Mosquitos actually were unarmed, and Luftwaffe found it almost impossible at first and always difficult to intercept them, even when they could see them comiing. Despite being wooden, they were also regarded as a remarkably sturdy aircraft that frequently returned with major battle damage. The Mosquito was also one of the few twin-engined planes which was claimed could not merely fly on one engine, but even climb comfortably with one engine stopped and 'feathered'.
Rating:
Summary: They didn't want wood
Review: My comment is more of a rebuttal about the wood construction of those wonderful fighter bombers. It has always been my understanding that wood construction was forced upon the manufacturer's because the United States would not sell aluminum to Great Britain at this time, and thus the use of wood was forced upon them. The movie itself is terrific. I sometimes put a loudspeaker outsdie my house and it sounds like the Mosquitoes are coming right over the house when I blast the neighborhood with the sounds of the planes coming over the landing strip at the start of the movie!!
Rating: 
Summary: Mossies and their crews are the stars
Review: Okay, I admit it - I excuse all the obvious failings of this forty-year-old film already noted by other reviewers because of the airplanes. DeHavilland's experience building high-performance airplanes from the original naturally-occurring composite material (wood) conserved strategic materials and produced the fastest airplane in the world for at least two years running during World War II. One of the few successful airplanes designed after the beginning of the war to be produced in quantity (over 7700 in dozens of versions in six factories on three continents), the Mossie is truly the star of this film. We may not think much of most of the scenes on the ground, but losses were a grim reality. The determination of the crews to defend their homeland and fight to liberate others while coping with their own fear and mortality shows us the best qualities of that great generation. Even if some of the acting was as wooden as the airplanes. My biggest complaint about the show was the actual destruction of two or three precious Mossies (Robertson's two prangs and another plowing into a fuel bowser). I second the craving for better sound - for those of you who can't get enough of the sound of a Merlin or two singing that most beautiful and alluring of mechanical siren songs, visit www.mossie.org, and go to "Donated Files." Scroll down to "Sounds," and get an earful. I turned up the computer speakers and played the "fly-past" clip, and my wife (upstairs in the bedroom) thought we had been buzzed!!
Rating:
Summary: Mossies and their crews are the stars
Review: Okay, I admit it - I excuse all the obvious failings of this forty-year-old film already noted by other reviewers because of the airplanes. DeHavilland's experience building high-performance airplanes from the original naturally-occurring composite material (wood) conserved strategic materials and produced the fastest airplane in the world for at least two years running during World War II. One of the few successful airplanes designed after the beginning of the war to be produced in quantity (over 7700 in dozens of versions in six factories on three continents), the Mossie is truly the star of this film. We may not think much of most of the scenes on the ground, but losses were a grim reality. The determination of the crews to defend their homeland and fight to liberate others while coping with their own fear and mortality shows us the best qualities of that great generation. Even if some of the acting was as wooden as the airplanes. My biggest complaint about the show was the actual destruction of two or three precious Mossies (Robertson's two prangs and another plowing into a fuel bowser). I second the craving for better sound - for those of you who can't get enough of the sound of a Merlin or two singing that most beautiful and alluring of mechanical siren songs, visit www.mossie.org, and go to "Donated Files." Scroll down to "Sounds," and get an earful. I turned up the computer speakers and played the "fly-past" clip, and my wife (upstairs in the bedroom) thought we had been buzzed!!
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