The First of the Few, (known as Spitfire in the United States), is a 1942 British film, starring and directed by Leslie Howard, and co-starring David Niven. The film score was written by William Walton, the Spitfire Prelude and Fugue.
It is a biography of R.J. Mitchell, the designer of the Supermarine Spitfire. The film's title refers to the words of Winston Churchill who, when speaking of the Battle of Britain aircrew said: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."
The film contains precious footage that would be otherwise be lost to posterity:
* Film footage of the Supermarine S.4 in taking off from Southampton Water, and in flight , which is now available nowhere else.
* Inter-war footage of aerobatic German sailplane flight, of a Grunau Baby in flight, and a Lohning Lo. 100 pulling loop. Again, this is rare footage and thus precious.
Leslie Howard's portrayal of Mitchell has a special significance since Howard was killed when the transport aircraft in which he was a passenger was shot down by the Luftwaffe one year after the film was released.
General Format : Matroska File size : 699 MiB Duration : 1h 53mn Overall bit rate : 859 Kbps
Video ID : 1 Format : AVC Format profile : [email protected] Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames Duration : 1h 53mn Bit rate : 650 Kbps Nominal bit rate : 664 Kbps Width : 704 pixels Height : 576 pixels Display aspect ratio : 4/3 Frame rate : 25.000 fps Writing library : x264 core 65
Audio ID : 2 Format : AC-3 Duration : 1h 53mn Bit rate mode : Constant Bit rate : 192 Kbps Language : English
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