Ships with Wings

Ships with Wings is a 1941 British war film directed by Sergei Nolbandov and starring John Clements, Leslie Banks and Jane Baxter. During the Second World War the British fleet air arm fight the Germans in Greece.

The film received an overwhelmingly positive reception from the popular press on its release. However, it came under attack from a number of intellectuals for what they considered its lack of realism while the Prime Minister Winston Churchill objected because of the large number of British casualties shown in the film which he considered bad for morale. The producer Michael Balcon was disturbed by these criticisms and commenced a shift in Ealings production away from such films towards what were considered more realistic portrayals in an attempt to counter this perceived lack of authenticity. However, except for Dead of Night, Ealings films for the remainder of the war failed to enjoy the same commercial success as the earlier unrealistic war films and were eclipsed at the box office by the Gainsborough Melodramas.

Source: Wikipedia