BasicLogic forget about what the other guys' high praises of this film. this is actually the worst film ever made about the wwii, period. i fell asleep and nodded off so many times during the viewing. what i saw in it was just a bunch of British guys blah, blah and blah, endless blabbering, joking, saluting, this and that pointless dialog. there's no storyline, no plot and no scenario at all, just a bunch of yoyos who played the British air pilots, they spent more time on the ground instead of in the air to actually do some flying. so many sir this and sir that and saluting, small talks, joking around. there's a woman operator in the operation room kept knitting all the time whenever she was on the scene. this is the worst viewing experience i've ever encountered in my life watching movies. you guys who praised this film should have your brains checked, and your totally untrue and irresponsible reviews had lured me to waste such a long time trying to figure out if there was something i missed during watching, but it just turned out totally a waste of time.

Robert J. Maxwell John Gregson is Pilot Officer "Septic" Baird, newly assigned to an RAF Hurricane squadron at the beginning of the war. Jack Hawkins is the Commanding Officer of the base and assorted regulars make up the supporting cast in this tale of the Battle of Britain seen mostly from the ground.Gregson plays a familiar type -- plenty of courage and skill but callow and lacking in discipline. He cracks up on his first landing and is assigned to Operations. That's the room with the big flat board, presided over by a couple of officers who coordinate incoming information while WAAFS sit around the table and plot the position and movement of German raiders and British interceptor squadrons. Gregson gets pretty bored and scuttles off during the first air raid to shoot down an Me 110 but he botches the flight because he accidentally leaves his transmitter on and nobody could use that frequency.The other men are all jolly good types. They toss each other around during moments of boisterous relaxation and affably throw insults at one another. Gregson, though, is alienated and is on his own trip, so to speak. Hawkins is the sensible commander who tries to empathize. There's a nascent romance involved.If this film were to be made by Americans, you know who would have been interested in directing it? Howard Hawks. It isn't really VERY different from many of Hawks' movies about male solidarity -- "Air Force," for instance, which uses a similar plot and similar characters. The chief difference is that there isn't much sparkle in this boyish dialog, whereas Hawks would have been at pains to invite amusing contributions from cast and crew, then taken credit for the gags himself later. Not to argue that Gregson's integration into the group is the focus of the film. It has so many focuses that it lacks focus.It's interesting to have Gregson serve as a proxy for the audience as he's taken on a tour of Operations and introduced to the personnel and their jobs. Also innovative is the use of Hawker Hurricane instead of the more glamorous Spitfires. Hurricane were an older design, slower and clumsier looking, but there were more of them. Their principal task was attacking the bombers. The German fighters were left to the Spitfires whenever the proper arrangements could be made.There's little in the way of air combat until the last few minutes, and the Hurricanes are real enough but the German planes are all models and they look it. The ending will probably come as a surprise.Not a bad show.

writers_reign In a perfect world of course and as it applies to film there would be a definitive film in one genre and no one would bother trying to equal it and leave well enough alone. Alas, we don't live in a perfect world though we DO have a definitive Air Force British movie covering the second world war in the shape of Rattigan's The Way To The Stars which focused more on life on the ground than in the air. Angels One Five stupidly attempts to do the same thing and falls light years short making it more a way to the stairs - even the naughty stair - than to the stars. On the other hand there may well be those who remain ignorant of Rattigan's masterpiece and they will find this highly acceptable despite John Gregson's spot-on impression of a silver birch. Shot in the early fifties there was still enough of England left to capture on film and it must be films like this that inspired the New Left to obliterate it, sadly, where Hitler failed, Tony Blair virtually succeeded.

FlossieD I don't know why I can't stop watching this film. It certainly has its moments of high "corn," although the British have never been as dedicated to the requisite happy ending as American filmmakers, which is again the case with this one. I think it's the peek into life at an English aerodrome during World War Two that keeps me coming back again and again to view this picture. In my opinion ANGELS ONE FIVE is a kind of mini war classic.