Friday
Of late I’ve become a great admirer of the films of the actor Dirk Bogarde. Although of Flemish heritage, he came to be seen as one of Britain’s greatest actors and at least one of his films ‘Victim’, in which he portrayed a gay barrister at a time when it was illegal to be gay, who was caught up in a web of blackmail, helped to change attitudes to gay people in the UK.
Dirk Bogarde was also more than adept at playing hard working, hard fighting, stiff upper lip British characters and appeared in such roles in films like A Bridge Too Far. Bogarde also served in the UK military as an intelligence officer during World War II and was said to be one of the first officers to be involved in the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen death camp in Germany. In my opinion it was Bogarde’s personal experience of the horrors of war, and the fight against Nazism, that made him so good at portraying British military charcters and that’s especially so in the case of this week’s Friday Night Movie offering, Appointment In London.
‘Appointment in London’ is about an RAF Wing Commander Tim Mason, played by Dirk Bogarde who has flown eighty-seven bombing missions over Germany and has been told by his superiors to consider retiring from flying as he has driven himself too hard. Mason ends up flying a total of ninety missions and the depiction of this 90th mission is excellent. Mason drives himself hard and his crews hard and is extremely concerned about the morale of his men and does all he can to keep it up, even going to the extent of banning wives and girlfriends of flyers from the airbase.
I won’t give too much away as this is an excellent film with a gripping if at times ‘wordy’ screenplay but it’s well worth taking the time to view it. I am delighted to find this film available and to be able to watch it again. I enjoy this film very much and I hope that you do as well.
