"The Lion Has Wings" turns out to be a typical Korda innovation. Not quite documentary, not quite newsreel, not quite adventure tale, t combines all three in an hour of vivid journalistic cinema.
The film, it transpired, was made wish the full ce-operation of the Air Ministry and with an Air Force Squadron Leader as technical ad-but with Mr. Korda's own Many of the 26 actors played their parts while waiting to join their various service units. The normal pay was $25 a day. Ralph Richardson and Merle Oberon gave services, Mr. Richardson com-to finish the film in 48 hours leave.
There is no fictional story, but studio actors reproduce, somewhat on March of Time lines, the close-ups of the argument. Ralph Richardson, for "xample, is an Air Force officer, Miss Oberon just a wife, any one of mil-ions. The opening section brushes n the background of English life before the wer, gradually points up, contrast for contrast, the growing shadow of the swastika—Hitler among his people; King George among his people; Austria, Czecho-Slovakia, Memel, Poiand—and the war is.
Pic.ured is the Sunday morning el September 3, the Prime Minister's broadcast, that first air-raid warning that ended the old order—also the silver balloon barrage over Land And a hint of the staff-work behind the defence machine. Then comes the high spot of the film—a reconstruction of the Kiel Canal raid, from information supplied by the actual flyers, who are seen taking eff and returning to the air field. "A cellulaid fairy tale" is how the Nazi radio described this sequence.
The film ends with an account of a possible night bombing raid on Bri'ain, repulsed by R. A. F. fighters and reported step by step to the key-men at secret headquarters. Taking it by and large, one feels that Mr. Korda has got something in "The Lion Has Wings" that the country' propaganda can very well do with.
The producer in a foreword "expresses his gratitude for the cooperation which he received from the cast, production personnel newsreel companies, the G. P. O. and other documentary film units."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.