Talk:The First of the Few

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Film: British / War

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Untitled

Didn't this film use footage of actual aerial dogfights in the beginning? // Liftarn

A slightly pedantic point, but since more Hurricanes than Spitfires fought in the Battle of Britain, the first Hurricane flew before the first Spitfire, and Sydney Camm was born before R. J. Mitchell, shouldn't this film have been called The Second of the Few? Ropemaker (talk) 18:21, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In a more romantic and emotional level, the svelte and sinewy Spitfire was always in the public psyche, even in their enemy's viewpoint as the image of "The Few" charging to the fray. In a modern appraisal of the fighting capabilities of the two main defenders, the Spitfire actually accounted for more of the victories on a per capita basis. Although a third more Hurricanes were in operational service, each Spitfire downed more enemy aircraft than the equivalent Hurricane fighter. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 18:34, 15 March 2009 (UTC).[reply]

Fair use rationale for Image:Spitfire2xs.jpg

Image:Spitfire2xs.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 05:43, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Geoffrey Crisp"

Is "Geoffrey Crisp" (played by David Niven) a fictional character? I don't see him listed as a pilot in the Schneider Trophy article... 212.84.104.198 (talk) 05:21, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Vickers’s test pilot Jeffrey Quill was the actual person being portrayed.FWiW Bzuk (talk) 16:42, 29 November 2009 (UTC).[reply]

Crisp is a fictitious composite character, though the name may have been a nod to Jeffrey Quill. Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:29, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"tuberculosis as a consequence of an immune system weakened"

That sounds very anachronistic.
Non-professionals didn't say "immune system" casually until GRID came along in the 1980s. That "ID" in GRID is an early reference to Immune Deficiency. Arthritis now gets described as an auto-immune disorder, but only since we entered this post-GRID/AIDS world where people are more aware of the concept.
I think people used to say "died of overwork" without lapsing into technicality.
Varlaam (talk) 17:15, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright status

I have deleted the link to the illicit hosting of this British film on Internet Archive. Original story co-writer Katherine Strueby did not die until 1988, so UK copyright subsists until the end of 2058. As a non-US film still under copyright in its country of origin on 1 January 1996, it is protected in the US for 95 years after publication, so to the end of 2037. Nick Cooper (talk) 11:51, 24 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Unique Footage

The article's claims for unique footage in the film are all tagged 'citation required', which is a bit tiresome, but one thing not mentioned is that in the closing moments there is an air-to-air shot of a Spitfire firing its guns, taken from about the 10 o'clock position ahead and to port of the fighter. The effect is startling, even brutal, and certainly very different from special-effects shots in American films, where John Wayne (for instance) is sitting in a studio mock-up of a fighter and rather feeble oxy-acetylene flames flutter from holes in the fake wings. It's also different from the classic 1969 film Battle of Britain, where no attempt was made to replicate gunfire visually and it was suggested solely by noises on the soundtrack. Happy to be corrected, but I know of no other extant air-to-air footage of a Second World War fighter firing its guns, seen from such an advantageous close-in angle. Memory is unreliable, but I've an idea that the Spitfire, like the others in the 'now' scenes of the film (the rest being told in flashback, effectively), carries the 'SD' codes of 72 Squadron. Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:29, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]