They Flew Alone
They Flew Alone | |
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![]() British DVD cover from 2010 | |
Directed by | Herbert Wilcox |
Screenplay by | Miles Malleson |
Story by | Viscount Castlerosse |
Produced by | Herbert Wilcox |
Starring | Anna Neagle Robert Newton Edward Chapman |
Cinematography | Mutz Greenbaum |
Edited by | Geoffrey Foot |
Music by | William Alwyn |
Production company | Herbert Wilcox Productions |
Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures |
Release dates |
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Running time | 103 minutes (UK) 94 minutes (US) |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
They Flew Alone (released in the US as Wings and the Woman) is a 1942 British biopic about aviator Amy Johnson directed and produced by Herbert Wilcox and starring Anna Neagle, Robert Newton and Edward Chapman.[1][2] It was distributed in the UK and the US by RKO Radio Pictures.
Plot
[edit]The film chronicles the life of Amy Johnson, the British pilot who had gained world attention in the 1930s for her exploits, among them two solo record flights from London to Cape Town in South Africa, and who had joined the Air Transport Auxiliary at the outbreak of the Second World War. It was intended to be both a film honouring Johnson, who had died in 1941 during a ferry flight of an Airspeed Oxford, and a propaganda call to arms at the height of the war years.
Cast
[edit]- Anna Neagle as Amy Johnson
- Robert Newton as Jim Mollison
- Edward Chapman as Mr. Johnson
- Nora Swinburne as ATA Commandant
- Joan Kemp-Welch as Mrs. Johnson
- Brefni O'Rorke as Mac
- Charles Carson as Lord Wakefield
- Martita Hunt as Miss Bland
- Anthony Shaw as Official
- Eliot Makeham as Mayor of Croydon
- David Horne as Solicitor
- Miles Malleson as Vacuum Salesman
- Aubrey Mallalieu as Bill, the Barber
- Charles Victor as Postmaster
- Hay Petrie as Old General
- John Slater as Officer on Interview Panel
- Percy Parsons as Man
- Cyril Smith as Radio Operator On Aquitania
- George Merritt as Reporter
- Muriel George as Kitty, the Housekeeper
- Ian Fleming as Secretary
- William Hartnell as Scotty (as Billy Hartnell)
- Arthur Hambling as Policeman
- Peter Gawthorne as RAF Officer
- Ronald Shiner as mechanic at Stag Lane
References
[edit]- ^ Harmes, Marcus K.; Harmes, Barbara; Harmes, Meredith A. (18 October 2021). The Nurse in Popular Media: Critical Essays. McFarland. p. 16. ISBN 978-1-4766-8418-5.
- ^ Johnson, Ian (2005). William Alwyn: The Art of Film Music. Boydell Press. pp. 51–52. ISBN 978-1-84383-159-4.
External links
[edit]- They Flew Alone at AllMovie
- They Flew Alone at the British Film Institute[better source needed]
- They Flew Alone at IMDb
- 10K bullets: DVD review of They Flew Alone Retrieved 2013-01-06
- 1942 films
- British aviation films
- 1940s war drama films
- British black-and-white films
- 1940s English-language films
- Films directed by Herbert Wilcox
- British World War II propaganda films
- British war drama films
- British biographical drama films
- Films scored by William Alwyn
- RKO Pictures films
- Cultural depictions of Amy Johnson
- 1940s biographical drama films
- Films set in London
- Films set in Australia
- 1942 drama films
- English-language biographical drama films