IT HAS BEAUTY BUT NO GLAMOUR

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 117, 12 February 1944, Page 5

IT HAS BEAUTY BUT NO GLAMOUR

“Coastal Command’-Tribute To A Service

(By

T.L.)

“Coastal Command” (Opera J -Ioui»e) describes, minutely and unemotionally, the whole vast machinery of search and attack that comes into play when an enemy raider is sighted off the coast of Norway. From a remote fljin<,-boat station to leelaud, out to sea and back to Coastal Command headquarters, the camera goes on its imperturbable way. For the makers of British documentaries” I have the soundest respect. Right through the darkest days—- “ Coastal Command” was released in London as far back as October. IJL. the producers' went ahead with their jobs. Their sets were the grim face ot a Britain at war, there were no glamorous stars on which to_ focus, but the cameramen learned to find beauty in other things—in this instance, a shot ot. Iceland ponies startlefl by a flight ot Beauforts, a Sunderland flying-boat, like some giant bird, skimming above a village Street at daybreak. In sheer pictorial quality—and “Coastal Command" is rich in these moments these scenes equal anything, and surpass most, that is being nut out from the commercial studios. “Coastal Command is at its best when the cameramen are having their way with it, or when Vaughan Williams’s majestic music comes rolling up to pay a great Service the tribute it deserves. See it by all means. See it, not only for its technical qualities, but because our own New Zealanders, too, are sharing iu this lonely, little-honoured patrol of the seas about Britain.