The Dam Busters is a 1954 British war film, set during World War II, and documenting the true story of the RAF's 617 Squadron, the development of the "bouncing bomb", and Operation Chastise - the attack on the Ruhr dams in Germany. It stars Michael Redgrave as Barnes Wallis, and Richard Todd as Wing Commander Guy Gibson.

The film has two distinct halves: firstly the story of engineer Wallis and his struggle to develop his bouncing bomb, and secondly the story of Gibson and his crews as they train for and then take part in the mission: which, it was hoped, would cripple German heavy industry. The aircraft had to fly extremely low (down to 60 feet), in order to release the bombs. The intention being that each bomb would skip or 'bounce' over anti-torpedo nets, hit and burst open the dams.

The flight sequences that take up the last half of the movie were filmed using real Avro Lancaster bombers supplied by the RAF. The aircraft, four Mk. 7s, had to be taken out of storage and specially modified, and cost £130 per hour to run, which amounted to a tenth of the film's costs. (An American cut was made more dramatic by depicting a plane flying into a hill and exploding. This version used stock Warner Brothers footage of a B-17 Flying Fortress as opposed to a Lancaster.)

The Upper Derwent Valley in Derbyshire, England (the actual test area for the real raids) doubled as the Ruhr valley for the film.

The flight sequence is heavily quoted in Star Wars (being the basis for the Death Star trench run), and action is often copied scene for scene. Even some dialogue is repeated. Both films require a bomb to be fired at a very specific target with a small window of error.

The scenes with Gibson's black labrador dog, "Nigger", appear in Pink Floyd's The Wall film. These scenes were cut from ITV's last showing of The Dam Busters after their previous broadcast received complaints for the use of the word nigger. While ITV has been criticised for censoring historical fact, and maligning the impact of a moving cinematic sequence in the process, the edited showing received many fewer complaints than the previous un-edited broadcast.

The Dam Busters has been praised as one of the greatest war films of all time, but also criticised as glorifying war and destruction. Music commissioned for the film, 'The Dam Busters March', by Eric Coates has also remained popular⁽¹⁾. In 2004 the magazine Total Film named The Dam Busters the 43rd greatest British film of all time.

Rumors have circulated that Mel Gibson is directing a remake of The Dam Busters starring Liam Neeson. There have been references to filming taking place in western England as of 2004.

Trivia

1. Whenever the English national football team scores a goal against the German national team, English supporters hold their arms out horizontally and hum the theme tune to The Dam Busters.
2. There were two television advertisements for a brand of beer which played on the theme of The Dam Busters. Both adverts were made before the English football team broke a 35 year loosing streak against Germany. The first showed a German guard on top of a dam catching a bouncing bomb as if he were a goalkeeper. The second showed a British tourist throwing a Union Jack towel like a bouncing bomb to reserve a pool side seat before the German tourists could reserve them with their towels. Both actions were followed by the comment "I bet he drinks [the beer brand]"[1].

See Also

The Music Man (song)