Analysis:

The Way to the Stars is one of the most effective and understated films about the conflict made during the Second World War, though it features no combat scenes and only three (brief) shots from inside a cockpit.

Taking its title from the Latin script on the Royal Air Force coat of arms - 'Per ardua ad astra' - its genesis lay in the RAF experiences of playwright Terence Rattigan, which he initially used in his play Flare Path. Rattigan eventually re-shaped this material into a screenplay in collaboration with producer Anatole de Grunwald and Anthony Asquith, who directed ten films taken from his work.

The film is told in flashback and is set between 1940 and 1944. The celebrated opening sequence is made up of a series of elaborate tracking shots that survey the now abandoned airbase, casually introducing a number of props and motifs that will be referred to at later points in the film. This approach was later emulated in the Hollywood film about American bombing raids over Germany, Twelve O'Clock High (d. Henry King, 1949).

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