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Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Best movie ever!

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger were one of the great director-writer teams in the history of cinema (Ozu and Noda being possibly their only superiors; others come to mind, though they have smaller bodies of work -- Losey and Pinter, certainly Antonioni and Guerra, or De Sica and Guerra, maybe Lean and Coward). When they first began collaborating, Powell was the director, and Pressburger the writer, and although in time they would come to share those responsibilities to some extent, this more or less remained the nature of their partnership until it ended in 1957."One of Our Aircraft Is Missing" is the duo's fourth collaboration; however, it is the first film officially by The Archers, the production company started by Powell and Pressburger for this film. Prior to this one, they had worked together on three feature films, for which Powell was the only credited director and Pressburger the only credited writer of the two. Those films were "The Spy in Black", "Contraband" (a.k.a. "Blackout"), and "49 Parallel". "One of Our Aircraft Is Missing" marks the first time that both the directing credits and the writing credits were shared between them, a trend that would continue for the remaining extent of their working relationship. These early efforts by Powell and Pressburger are not especially good, and are by no means their best work. Formally, they're pretty flat, utilizing the plain, minimalistic, realist aesthetic that was popular in British cinema at the time. In terms of content, they're lacking in thematic depth, and they're highly propagandistic. There's not much to praise in these films, except that we can see the beginnings of the duo's gift for storytelling that would eventually elevate them to the great filmmakers we now know them to be.Powell had been directing films since the beginning of the '30s. I haven't been able to find many of those early films from before his days with Pressburger, but the one I did find -- his 1934 film, "The Fire Raisers" -- was superior to anything else I've seen from that period in British cinema, including Hitchcock's work from that time. By 1939, when Powell and Pressburger teamed up for their first effort, a spy thriller called "The Spy in Black", the war was breaking out, and this called for an influx of propaganda into British cinema. As degrading as that would inevitably be to the quality of their films, Powell and Pressburger felt it their duty to use the tools available to them to serve the cause they believed in, and to help in some small way to win the global war against fascism. I can't possibly blame them for that, but it is worth noting that these films, including "One of Our Aircraft Is Missing", are overtly propagandistic, and that will certainly be frustrating at times for any unbiased, unprejudiced viewer.Unfortunately, even outside of the propaganda element, there's just not that much to say about "One of Our Aircraft Is Missing", except that it's neither a good nor a bad film. It's similar to Powell and Pressburger's previous collaboration, "49th Parallel", in many ways. "49th Parallel" was a British film about Canada. It was a love letter to Canada intended to encourage a cross-cultural connection between the two wartime allies. "One of Our Aircraft Is Missing" does the same thing, except instead of Canada, it is the Netherlands this time. Both films feature Eric Portman, a quality actor.Bernard Miles is another familiar face in the film. He was a minor British actor that has popped up in many of the films I've seen from this era (he had small roles in "The Spy in Black", "The Lion Has Wings", and "Contraband", and was later in a couple of David Lean films, "In Which We Serve" and "Great Expectations", as well as Hitchcock's American remake of "The Man Who Knew Too Much"). Also keep an eye out for a young Peter Ustinov, as the priest. "One of Our Aircraft Is Missing" and "The Spy in Black" are the weakest films that I've seen by Powell and Pressburger (unless you include their short film, "The Volunteer", also from the war years). "49th Parallel" is a slightly better film, as is "Contraband", with its levity and wit, but this stretch of propaganda work by Powell and Pressburger is certainly the weakest period in their otherwise impressive oeuvre. It's not until their fifth collaboration, "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp", that we see the legitimately impressive Powell and Pressburger cinema that would become their standard of quality from that point forward (again, barring "The Volunteer", their sixth film). "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" was the last of their feature propaganda films. Their seventh collaboration, "A Canterbury Tale", begins to break away from that irritatingly patriotic mode of filmmaking. While it certainly retains some of the propaganda elements from their previous films, it begins to see them liberated from the necessity to make those kinds of films, and that was a big step forward for their cinema.And yet, even these early films, from before Powell and Pressburger truly hit their stride with "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp", are enjoyable enough to justify a watch. "One of Our Aircraft Is Missing" serves its purpose as a propaganda film, and also is mildly satisfying as entertainment. It has a plot that is probably just engaging enough to keep the viewer's interest, and while there's no real substance of any kind, it is certainly not a bad film. It is simply a mediocre film. Those who aren't watching it as a Powell and Pressburger film, and who are simply watching it in its own right, may not find it especially fulfilling. However, fans of Powell and Pressburger's work (or other, similar films from the time period) will likely find it to be worth the time.RATING: 4.67 out of 10 stars

"...one of our aircraft is missing ..." is a well-cast and well-written piece from Powell and Pressburger, key film makers in 1940s Britain.The crew of B for Bertie find themselves lost in enemy territory and have to depend on the resources of others to get them to safety. The crew are played by some of the best actors of the time: Godfrey Tearle as the upper-class rear gunner; Eric Portman as the bluff Yorkshire co-pilot; Hugh Williams (father of 1970s actor Simon) as the refined navigator; Bernard Miles - better than usual - as the front gunner; High Burden as the pilot; and Emrys Jones as the Welsh sportsman who became the radio operator.In support are Googie Withers, P&P regular Pamela Brown, Joyce Redman, Robert Helpmann (as the quisling), Alec Clunes (father of Martin) as the church organist, and Peter Ustinov (in his film debut) as the priest.This film has been done as a drama-documentary so has a very realistic feel and look, pulling the viewer right into the action alongside the aircraft crew. It is less atmospheric than the 30s P&P films featuring Conrad Veidt and perhaps represented a more grounded style to their work before their Technicolor fantasies of the late 40s.

The crew of B for Bertie is forced to bail out when their engines are damaged during a mission over the Netherlands. They regroup but lose one of their number in the air. They are discovered by a group of Dutch children who take them to their parents. The parents link to the Dutch underground and begin to facilitate their escape – but it is a perilous journey. The film is dedicated to the Dutch farmers who died helping British airmen escape the Germans.Made during the war, the realistic and low key nature of this film is perhaps understandable, as is the consistently shouted theme of ordinary people making a heroic difference. The plot on paper is interesting as it does involve sacrifice and bravery from ordinary farmers, however the delivery is surprisingly uninvolving. The film is very slow for the most part, an impression that isn't helped by having a large proportion of the dialogue in Dutch. I know this helps the realism but it did make it harder for me to get into the film as often minutes could pass without me understanding a word.The realism of this film is fair to those it is dedicated to, but they aren't given characters to speak of. The RAF officers are well established with backgrounds but the Dutch and the Germans are all pretty one-dimensional and not developed (with one or two exceptions), again, another barrier to me getting involved.The cast are hard working and mostly quite good. The RAF officers have all the best roles and best lines, while the Dutch characters are not given enough to do – any film where Peter Ustinov comes off looking bland and ordinary has done something wrong!Overall I wanted to enjoy this film more, and it's core story and message to a war time population is worthy at least. However the distant delivery and lack of strong characters makes for a quite dull film. I enjoyed the film but it is impossible to overlook it's flaws. Many other reviewers here have mentioned that this film often is forgotten beside the wider works of Powell and Pressburger (and Lean, who edited), I suggest that these flaws are the reasons that it is overlooked.

Good flick; a different perspective (night bombing) than most of the air force world war two movies-12 O'clock High or Memphis Belle, for instance. Worth the price of admission to see Peter Ustinov thin (and young!)