In Which We Serve (UA, 1942, UK), One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (Angl...

Description

In Which We Serve (UA, 1942, UK), One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (Anglo-American, 1942), The Sound Barrier (British Lion, 1952), The Dam Busters (Associated British-Pathé, 1955), Dunkirk (Ealing-MGM, 1958), Sink the Bismark ( TCF, 1960, UK), and The Battle of Britain (UA, 1969, UK), Key Set Photographs (160+). Vintage gelatin glossy 8" x 10" (20) key set photographs of Noël Coward, John Mills, and Richard Attenborough in In Which We Serve, with United Artists UK paper caption on the verso, glossy 8" x 10" (35+) (six double-weight), double-weight 4.75" x 6.5" (9), and 3.25" x 4.5" (2) key set photographs of Godfrey Tearle, Eric Portman, Hugh Burden, Hugh Williams, Googie Withers, Joyce Redman, and Pamela brown in One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (dir. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, written by Terrance Rattigan), with reference print number in graphite on the verso, glossy 9" x 11.75" (4) and 8" x 10" (3) key set photographs of Ralph Richardson and Ann Todd in The Sound Barrier (dir. David Lean) by George Courtney Ward, with Photograph by / GEORGE COURTNEY WARD and London Film Productions wet stamps and British Lion paper caption on the verso, glossy 8" x 10" (10+) and 6" x 8" (2) master key set and studio release photographs of Richard Todd, Michael Redgrave, and Ursula Jeans in The Dam Busters, with Warner-Pathé wet stamp and key set album residue on the verso, semi-gloss (eight double-weight) 8" x 10" (10+) and 8" x 6.5" (1) key set photographs of John Mills and Richard Attenborough in Dunkirk by George Stroud, with DAILY EXPRESS / G. STROUD / PHOTOGRAPH wet stamp and MGM UK paper caption on the verso, glossy borderless 7.5" x 9.5" (10+) and 8" x 10" (15+) (two double-weight) key set photographs of Kenneth More and Dana Wynter in Sink the Bismark, with 20th Century Fox UK wet stamp, paper caption, and KEY SET stamp on the verso, semi-gloss borderless (twenty double-weight) 12" x 8.5" (1), 8" x 12.5" (1), 8" x 10" (14), 7.5" x 11.75" (1), 7.5" x 9.5" (4), 6.5" x 12.5" (1), 6.25" x 9.75" (1), 6" x 12" (1), and 6" x 9" (1) key set and studio release photographs of Michael Caine, Trevor Howard, Ian McShane, Kenneth More, Laurence Olivier, Christopher Plummer, Michael Redgrave, Robert Shaw, and Susannah York in The Battle of Britain by Larry Ellis, with credit wet stamp (8) and paper caption on the verso. Very Good to Excellent, with editorial annotations in grease pencil and masking in black (3), paper loss on the verso (1), edge tears and chipping (1), and creasing to some. Comes with a COA from Heritage Auctions.

More Information: Written and produced by Noël Coward (co-dir.), David Lean (dir., debut), In Which We Serve is the definitive wartime tribute to Britain's resilience. One of Our Aircraft Is Missing is a drama of an RAF crew stranded in Holland and the villagers who risk everything to guide them home. A film of quiet heroism and compassion, it honors the dignity of ordinary people in extraordinary times.

"You see. That's what you're doing for us. Can you hear them running for shelter? Can you understand what that means to all the occupied countries? To enslaved people, having it drummed into their ears that the Germans are masters of the Earth. Seeing those masters running for shelter. Seeing them crouching under tables. And hearing that steady hum night after night. That noise which is oil for the burning fire in our hearts." (Googie Withers as "Jo de Vries in One of Our Aircraft Is Missing)

A major British war film of the postwar period, Dunkirk dramatized the evacuation of British and Allied forces from France in 1940, blending large-scale battle recreation with intimate stories of civilians and soldiers caught in the crisis. Mills anchored the picture as the resolute infantryman, while Attenborough offered a more conflicted portrayal of an opportunistic businessman drawn into the evacuation effort. The film resonated deeply in Britain as both a patriotic remembrance and a sober meditation on endurance under fire, long before Christopher Nolan revisited the subject six decades later. Stroud, staff photographer for the Daily Express, was one of the most respected UK photojournalists of the era, and his official stills for Dunkirk capture both the epic scale of MGM's production and the human dimension embodied by Mills and Attenborough. Original Stroud key set photographs remain important visual documents of a film that helped cement Dunkirk as a central episode in British national memory.

In recreating the aerial scenes for The Battle of Britain, over 100 aircraft were employed, including all 12 surviving Supermarine Spitfires that could be made flyable, two Heinkel Hurricanes, and 17 Messerschmitt Bf 109s, becoming the "35th largest air force in the world". These are the landmark films for which the small but thriving British production companies lavished unprecedented resources to recreate the wartime events that resulted in great privation, loss, and suffering, but which saw the nation rise in uniform resilience to survive the carnage with their spirits intact.


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