Original version

BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: British War Films of the 50s

The Essay: British War Films of the 50s: Episode 3: The Dam Busters

Documentaries

Factual: History

British War Films of the 50s

Episode 3

Episode 3: The Dam Busters

The Dam Busters

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, British War Films of the 50s, The Dam BustersClose menu

Simon Heffer discusses the depiction of British heroism in the film The Dam Busters.

Simon Heffer discusses the depiction of British heroism in the film The Dam Busters, contrasting this with its American counterpart.

Boys' Own pilots with cut-glass accents and no sense of personal fear: it's easy to mock the British films about the Second World War which were made in the 1950s and to suggest that all they are good for these days is selling Scandinavian lager, but Simon Heffer is passionate about them. 

In 2011 Simon Heffer wrote and presented a series of Essays for BBC Radio 3 which celebrated some of the great British films made about the Second World War while it was still going on - films in which propaganda and morale-boosting played central roles. 

In this new series, he turns to films which were made after the war was over, in the 1950s, when a new and more realistic approach to events became possible and questions about the difficult realities of peace were beginning to be asked. Where better to ask them than in the single most important artform of the time? As Simon Heffer says: 

"From 1939 to 1945 they had all been in it together; now they were all in the Odeon together."

In the third programme he looks at the depiction of British heroism in The Dambusters - perhaps the British war film to end all British war films - contrasting this with its American counterpart. 

"At a time when a sense of national inferiority was setting in compared with the Americans, such understated machismo helped us feel good about ourselves."

In subsequent programmes, Simon Heffer looks at Carve Her Name with Pride and Dunkirk, celebrating these films not only in their own right but also for their depiction of the changing world of post-war Britain. 

Producer: Beaty Rubens.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Historian and writer Simon Heffer celebrates British military films made in the 1950s

Historian and writer Simon Heffer discusses British military films made in the 1950s, celebrating their individual qualities and their depiction of the changing world of post-war Britain

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Essay

British War Films of the 50s

Episode 3: The Dam Busters

Genres

Formats

Brand

Series

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3