Rating: 
Summary: David McCallum is Excellent
Review: MOSQUITO SQUADRON is a very good WW2 aviation movie. David McCallum is one of my favorite actors. I grew up with him on THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. where he was just perfect for that role as he is in this movie. David McCallum leads this squadron to victory in is own great style. I wish David could have made more films like this that showed what a great actor he is.
Rating:
Summary: Good RAF Film
Review: MOSQUITO SQUADRON is quite British and a very entertaining World War II action adventure tale that focuses both on story and military air bombing strategies of the era. Starring David McCallum as Quint Munroe a Canadian-born RAF pilot he leads an exellent cast that includes Charles Gray as Air Commodore Hufford, Vladek Sheybal as Lieutenant Schack and Robert Urquhart as Major Kemble. Directed by Boris Sagal this film features brilliant cinematography by Paul Beeson (RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK), an outstanding score composed by Frank Cordell (KHARTOUM) and effective special effects Les Bowie (X THE UNKNOWN). David McCallum is a brilliant and interesting actor who gives new meaning to underplaying a role and still being the focal point of the viewer. This is a little overlooked gem of a film. I highly recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Underrated war movie, but still good for all that
Review: This movie is not supposed to be a carbon copy of its highly successful predecessor, "633 Squadron", yet, to one's horror, one discovers that the opening footage of the V-1 launch, flight and ultimate destruction in a London street, has been lifted straight from "Operation Crossbow" - and I only discovered THAT years after watching this movie several times on television.
One can take proverbial potshots (like the Germans at the Mosquito bombers flying at zero feet) at David McCallum for what people have described as his wooden, deadpan portrayal of Squadron Leader Quint Monroe, who appears relatively unemotional when reporting the "death in action" of his previous commanding officer, "Scotty" (David Buck), to his superior officer.
However, that would be an unfair criticism of McCallum: it would be unrealistic if he were to portray Monroe in a way that suggested that he had to adopt a certain persona just to please the audience (or the studio people) by playing a given stereotype. RAF fighter pilots were, in the eyes of the public, supposed to be suave and debonair, yet, as this film and "Battle of Britain" prove, they were ordinary people doing extraordinarily stressful jobs in extraordinary times. Hence, their emotions should reflect the environment of the characters the actors portray.
The most convincing portrayal is that of Charles Gray as the air commodore who tells Monroe to "chuck a bomb" in a tunnel next to a commandered French chateau in order to destroy V-3s (as they were referred to) being constructed in an underground chamber. My favourite line in the movie was when Monroe gave his reaction to the difficulty of the mission at the briefing: "[It's] like spitting into an air commodore's eye from an express train, sir." People who watched "Crossbow" will remember that there was, indeed, a vast studio set resembling such a chamber, yet no such thing is seen in this movie, so, although there was no copying here, it is nevertheless a disappointment.
Having said that, perhaps the budget was somewhat tight, considering that it costs money to have preserved Mosquito bombers (or anything of WWII vintage) flying in movies, and so the cheapest solution for the scene, in which Monroe (McCallum) and Scotty's widow (Suzanne Neve) are in a car, is to have McCallum barely budge the steering wheel while Neve's hair is hardly ruffled while their car is in front of a screen showing a winding road probably filmed from the back of a lorry (one wonders if the camera actually fell off it!).
The most tension-filled scenes are the ones filmed in the chateau grounds where the priest, an intelligence agent, informs the RAF prisoners being used as human shields that Mosquitoes will conduct a bombing raid soon. The prisoners include the supposedly "dead" Scott, only Monroe knows he is alive because of a film "sent" by Luftwaffe fighters which shoot up the airfield (in this case, RAF Bovington) for good measure. Even so, he has orders to obey: destroy the rockets - even if it means that "Scotty" - and a great many fellow comrades - might be killed for real this time around.
Like practically all British war films of the 1960s, one can be sure that there will be certain elements: a romance that doesn't quite work well, a war mission with lots of people being killed, the mission finally succeeding and (with the exception of "633 Squadron", perhaps) most, if not all, of the heroes returning home. This film has all these elements, yet it has been knocked - perhaps unfairly - by many people for the so-called "wooden" acting. Nevertheless, it is entertaining and watchable, even if it isn't in the same league as "633 Squadron" and "Battle of Britain".
Rating: 
Summary: This is a major skip
Review: This movie was recommended to me on the basis of the special effects with the Mosquito bombers. Don't believe it. The special effects are generally poor to mediocre. Their only saving grace is that the movie itself is so awful that they gain a modicum of respectability by comparison.Where to begin. The only response I have to much of this film is helpless laughter. As one example, the Germans drop a film canister at the hero's air base. Under normal circumstances, such a thing would be immediately scooped up by British intelligence and whisked off for review. But we are instead expected to believe that it is immediately screened right there, with the squadron leader and the grieving widow's brother (don't ask!) in attendance. Other details, such as the grieving widow who is permitted to go into the ex-squadron leader's office (and dayroom) to collect his personal effects - apparently she has pretty much free run of the air base. Her pain lasts approximately until she runs into David McCallum there (the replacement squadron leader, who also happens to be the ex-squadron leader's pseudo-brother). An interminable scene of the two of them riding bicycles in the park, but lacking the Burt Bachrach score. Then we have the hero and the grieving widow talking in a convertible while driving around the countryside - no wind noise and their hair does not move! It does not move! And she has BIG hair. There is one interesting point. I don't know whether or not George Lucas actually saw this film, but the bombing runs over the Nazi chateau and the nature of the target itself seem to strongly prefigure the equivalent bombing runs over the Death Star in Star Wars IV. If so, it would be the only positive effect this movie has produced. As for the acting, understand that we are not talking Olivier here. David McCallum reprises the emotive range he demonstrated as The Man From UNCLE, and the rest of the cast seems intent on living down to his example. There are many good WWII aviation movies set in the European theater - ...
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