Journey Together [VHS]

Despite its vague, easily forgettable title, Journey Together is yet another fantastic war film to have come out of wartime Britain. It is principally a tribute to the Royal Air Force. Not only is it produced by the RAF film unit, many of the cast members actually served in the RAF at the time. A notable exception is Edward G. Robinson, who is really just superb as an American flight instructor who takes charge of the film's main characters during part of their pilot training. If you've ever wondered how a guy got to serve aboard a bomber in World War II, this is your movie because it takes you through the whole training program and, in the end, into combat over the skies of Berlin.

The story follows three young servicemen as they work their way through the training program of flight school and beyond. I lost track of the third character along the way, though, because the focus is almost completely on young David Wilton (Richard Attenborough) and John Aynesworth (Jack Watling). Wilton has a young Mickey Rooney quality to him - he's boyish and excitable, and when he gets down on himself, he really goes all out. All he wants to be is a pilot, but he's lucky to get in to flight school at all. Aynesworth, meanwhile, is a natural-born pilot. Wilton knows his stuff, while Aynesworth doesn't learn all that much and even tries to cheat on his exams - I would have thought the RAF frowned on that kind of thing, but we all know they needed good pilots during World War II. The two buddies eventually make it out to Arizona to train and earn their wings (under the tutelage of an American instructor played by Edward G. Robinson). These RAF men enjoy a surprisingly personal relationship with all of their instructors up and down the line, I must say, as learning seems to be stressed over discipline. In any event, Wilton hits a brick wall in his training - he's an excellent flier, but he can't land a plane worth a diddlysquat. Landing's sort of an important part of the whole flying equation, and Wilton eventually finds himself transferred to navigation school.

Wilton wants to be a pilot, not a navigator, and he basically mopes around and doesn't pay strict attention to his studies. If his superior officers didn't go to great pains to change his outlook on life, this guy would have been booted out completely or gotten some fellow crewmen killed. Personally, with Aynesworth's cheating and Wilton's lack of commitment to navigation, I would have given both of them the boot. Navigation is incredibly important; if you're flying a bombing run deep into Germany, you sort of want to avoid the trouble spots, find and hit your target, and get home safely - which is something Wilton learns first-hand when he finally goes out on his first combat mission.

With all of this training and a distinct lack of females, this film might sound a little boring. It's not. Journey Together is blessed with some great characters you can readily identify with, and each stop along the training pathway proves to be quite interesting in and of itself. The final scenes are nothing short of gripping, as there is plenty of suspense - not to mention danger - built into Wilton's first taste of actual combat. From start to finish, Journey Together is just a terrific wartime film that gives you at least some idea of what life in the RAF was like for the heroic men who carried out the bombing raids over Germany.