Appendix 3.2: Sample films - synopses and character lists
THE DAM BUSTERS UK 55
during the 1950s. The meritocratic ideal (cf. among others,
Bernard Miles 1951 film, Chance of a Lifetime) is assumed in
the mutual understanding and respect suggested between the two
central characters Barnes Wallis and Squadron Commander Gibson
(Richard Todd). These men are each exceptional in their
chosen fields and recognise each other as such. They
exemplify the premise of meritocracy, that innate ability will
eventually overcome any odds.
Barnes Wallis' obstacles are the stifling inertia of
bureaucracy represented by a rather cliched Whitehall
administration. Gibson's are the limits of skill and the
properties of matter: the bomb will only work if dropped from
exactly the right height at the right speed and distance from
the objective, the wall of the dam. Thus we can understand
Gibson's struggle as being with the physical environment and
Wallis' with the social one. The narrative is rather more
subtle than this schematic summary suggests since Wallace also
deals with the physical world in the sense that it is his
mathematical researches which produce the bomb, and Gibson
deals with the social world in his selection and training of
the squadron and in his nurture and care of the crews. Yet
neither mathematics, for Wallis, nor command, for Gibson, are
constructed in the narrative as problematic.
The film opens with Wallis' domestic surroundings - his family
friend the doctor, his wife, his children. The almost total
absence of female characters is a striking feature of this
film: Wallis' wife is the only female character with any
appreciable narrative function and this is, arguably, of
rather less importance than that of Gibson's dog Nigger
(renamed Tiger for the American audience). We meet Nigger
before Gibson himself as the latter emerges fropm his plane
after what was supposed to be his last tour of duty before a
well-earned vacation in Cornwall.
Apart from the central thesis of the film which entails the
representation of a specific historical incident in terms of a
view of social endeavour current in the mid fifties, and from
which female participation is spectacularly absent, there are
one or two other observations of interest.
There is reference to the dominant presence of Americans in
the UK:
Can you walk straight into shows these days?
You can't get into the stalls 'cos of the Americans,
but...
and a nod in the direction of the wartime contribution of
Commonwealth forces as well as US Allies in the scene where
Gibson and his senior officer are selecting the pilots who
will form the squadron:
Gibson: Australian - Knight; McC...? New
Zealander?
Whitworth: American. Glorious blond. Used to be a
218