Film 2014 : The First of the Few (1942)
Leslie Howard directs and stars in this straight-down-the-line biopic about R J Mitchell, the man who designed the Spitfire. The First of the Few opens with newsreel footage of Germany’s blitzkrieg - indeed, on further reflection perhaps there’s not much difference between the opening five minutes of the film, with its animated maps (very Dad’s Army), breathless radio commentators and montages of troops and planes, and the newsreels that one presumes preceded the feature presentation in cinemas in 1942.
Zero Day - September 15th 1940. We cut to an RAF airfield, as a squadron under the direct charge of Wing Commander Crisp (David Niven, serious, but as always unflappable) scrambles to intercept a wave of German fighters detected just off Beachy Head. The movie cuts between the classi c Sector Control Room set up (large tabletop map of the coast with aircraft models being pushed around by WAAF plotters, WAAF Radio operators reporting signals, Flight controller relaying the state of play) and Hunter Squadron. Following a successful sortie, the pilots quiz Crisp about the man responsible for their crates. (All the RAF slang one could wish for is present and correct, delivered in an underplayed, sang-froid style by genuine RAF personnel, not actors.)
Flash back to 1922, and Mitchell picking up inspiration from seagulls during a beach holiday… Leslie Howard is his characteristic donnish self, delicate, dreamy, intellectual ; David Niven enters the story as a former WWI ace, an old school chum, who becomes Mitchell’s chief test pilot. The story of the Spitfire is also the story of the Schneider Trophy, and how an international airspeed competition led to revolutionary aircraft design.
Throughout the dialogue is on the nose (“284 mph? Mitch this is 1927, not 1977!”) and Mitchell is shown to be Supermarine’s, and then Vickers’, in-house design genius, to be indulged where possible by fusty board members who don’t quite understand his ideas. Howard as director uses real (and now the only extant) footage of Schneider Trophy triumphs, and covers the tragic death of one pilot in the races with a genuine newspaper front page ; an intrusion of harsh reality on what is almost a picture book portrayal of an idealised / idolised inventor. This picture book quality is reinforced by the majority of this section of the film being shot on interior sound stages at Pinewood and Denham (which stand in for locations as varied as Southampton, Baltimore, Venice and Germany) ; many scenes take place in Mitchell’s obviously studio-bound cottage garden.
Niven brings a welcome raffish charm to his role as Mitchell’s comrade-in-arms and cheerleader ; there are comedy Italian fascists, hearty and sinister German glider enthusiasts, and the rather amazing character of Lady Houston, a stately old battleaxe who stumps up the money for Mitchell’s research whilst cruising the waters in a yacht displaying the illuminated messages DOWN WITH THE GOVERNMENT WAKE UP ENGLAND.
The film darkens with Mitchell’s health problems, shown here as crippling stress brought on by constant overwork ; there’s a poignant conversation between Mitchell and his wife in which Mitchell is passionate that there are some things that have to be done which are more important than health, and which are bigger than marriage. It’s hard to separate Howard, who just a year later will perish possibly undertaking something that he also perceived to be as important, from the character he portrays at this point.
Odeon Entertainment’s Blu-Ray includes Conversations with David Niven, a 1983 Granada production fronted by Chris Kelly as a tribute following the actor’s death. This gives us a chance to see what an unrestored First of the Few looks like (grim) and is a treasure house of the great raconteur’s stories - spiking the extras drinks in The Prisoner of Zenda, exasperating William Wyler with his inability to cry on cue in Wuthering Heights, employing Peter Ustinov as his batman to help get The Way Ahead into production. (And yes, William Hartnell is in both of the extracts shown.)
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