This film is about a major event during World War II for which no previous movies had been made. "Above and Beyond" is based on a true story. The writers, John W. Doyle and Lisa Porter tell the story as it might have happened behind the scenes with the major characters in the British war effort. The young actors have most of the lead roles in the film. They form the romantic vehicle for the story. Those fictional roles are all fine, but none exceptional. On the other hand, the casting of the real characters in history is superb. And, the portrayals of Winston Churchill, Don Bennett, Lord Beaverton, Archibald Sinclair, and Dr. Sir Frederick Banting are wonderful.
A movie based on a historical event, especially about World War II, arouses the history buff in me. So, some reading and researching led me to find out more interesting details about the story and the key players in history who appear in the film. Perhaps other movie buffs will enjoy this as well.
Construction of Gander International Airport began in 1936. In the movie, Capt. Don Bennett (played excellently by Richard E. Grant) says about Gander, "Largest slab of tarmac in the world. Built for the trans- Atlantic passenger service. Rather ahead of its time." To which Lord Beaverbrook (played excellently by Kenneth Welsh) replies, "I do believe its time has come." So, it became the base for the Atlantic Ferry service. Today it is a civilian airport with a Canadian Air Force base sharing the airfield. It is home to air/marine search and rescue that covers a large area of the Western Atlantic.
Don Bennett was a native Australian and famous aviator who set flight records in the 1930s. He was the first superintendent of the Atlantic Ferry service which he helped set up as a private operation. As in the movie, he led the first flight of seven Hudson aircraft that crossed the North Atlantic on Nov. 10, 1940. Bennett was a stern man, whom many British leaders found arrogant and abrasive. But aviators held him in high esteem. His 1935 book, "The Complete Air Navigator" was the essential textbook on the subject for more than 30 years. In the summer of 1941, the service was reorganized as the Atlantic Ferry Organization (AFTERO) within the RAF. Bennet left and went on to a distinguished war record, rising to the rank of Air Vice-Marshal. He later became CEO of British South American Airways. He was the only senior RAF officer from the war who wasn't knighted. Bennett never drank, smoked or was heard to curse or swear. Scenes in the movie show him drinking a whiskey and a gin and tonic with Lord Beaverbrook, but he never drank.
Lord Beaverbrook was a Canadian, born William Maxwell "Max" Aitken. He grew up in New Brunswick and by age 30 was a millionaire. He became a business tycoon, newspaper publisher and politician. He moved to England at age 30 in 1908, and expanded his businesses. He won a seat in the House of Commons in 1910. He was highly regarded as an organizer. Winston Churchill was a political friend who persuaded him to serve as Minister of Aircraft Production. Numerous books relate the great service Beaverbrook performed for England. He later renounced his British citizenship and returned to Canada, where he was a major philanthropist until his death in 1964 at age 85. Many of his charities and philanthropies exist today.
Peter Messaline plays Archibald Sinclair and bears an uncanny physical resemblance to him. Sinclair is a frequent antagonist to Lord Beaverbrook. He was the head of the Liberal party, which then held only 20 seats in Parliament. But, he had been a friend of Winston Churchill since serving under him during WW I. With WW II underway, Churchill became Prime Minister on May 10, 1940 and established an all-party cabinet to involve all political parties in the leadership of the war effort. He asked Sinclair to head the air ministry. After the war, Sinclair's fortunes mostly faded, but he was elevated to the House of Lords in the last years of his life.
Dr. Sir Frederick Banting was a Canadian and co-discoverer of insulin. He won the Nobel Prize for medicine/physiology in 1923 at age 32. He is the youngest person ever to have received the Nobel Prize in his field. Many institutions of learning and research in Canada today bear his name. Jason Priestly plays him splendidly in the movie. As the film shows, he hitched a ride from Gander to England on Friday, Feb. 21, 1941, and died when his plane crashed not long after takeoff. The movie doesn't give any more details. But the news accounts of the event tell what happened. Captain Joseph Mackey was the pilot and radioed that an engine had failed. They were going to return to Gander and the radio went silent in the movie.
The plane crashed in the bush just 10 miles from Musgrave Harbor, a fishing village located in the far northeast of Newfoundland just 60 miles from Gander. There were no roads into the area until 1956. Local residents later told of hearing a plane flying very low the day of the crash. But they didn't know about the crash until they heard a radio news broadcast Saturday evening that said a plane had crashed in the Newfoundland wilds with a famous doctor on board. Villagers on snowshoes found the wreck site five days after the crash and carried the men out on sleighs. Captain Mackey was the only survivor. Banting died from injuries and exposure.
Joss Auckland plays the unshakable Winston Churchill perfectly. Nothing more needs to be said about the great politician, author and orator who truly is one of the great men of the 20th century.
