Main Cast: Leslie Howard, David Niven, Rosamund John, Roland Culver, Anne Firth
Release Year: 1942
Country: UK
Run Time: 88 minutes
Plot
Not a remake of the 1934 Katharine Hepburn film of the same name, Spitfire was originally released in Great Britain as The First of the Few. Director Leslie Howard stars in this dramatization of the life and work of R.J. Mitchell, inventor of the Spitfire fighter plane. The film suggests, accurately as it turns out, that Mitchell was aware of Hitler's plans to conquer Europe by the air long before anyone else caught on (we see him watching a suspicious-looking group of "amateur" German gliding enthusiasts in the mid-1930s). David Niven, then a major in the British Army, was given leave to appear in this morale-boosting film as Mitchell's best friend, a dauntless test pilot. Ironically, Spitfire was released after the death of its star-director Leslie Howard, whose plane was shot down by the Germans somewhere between London and Lisbon. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
David Horne - Mr. Higgins; Rosalyn Boulter - Mabel Livesey; Tonie Edgar Bruce - Lady Houston; George Skillan - Mr. Royce; Herbert Cameron - MacPherson; Gordon McLeod - Maj. Buchan; Erik Freund - Willi Messerschmidt; Filippo del Guidice - Betiorelli; Robert Beatty; John Chandos - Kranz; Derrick de Marney - S.L. Jefferson; Patricia Medina; Bernard Miles; Brefni O'Rourke - Specialist; John H. Roberts - Sir Robert MacLean; Adrian Brunel; Miles Malleson; John Stafford; Victor Beaumont - Von Crantz; Frederick Wendhausen; Gerry Wilmot - Announcer; Bunny Currant - Himself; George King
