In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Missing Sequels.”

Like a good book, some of the best movie experiences are those that we don’t want to end. Most times, though, it is best that they do end…we’ve all seen the series of hacked sequels that can follow a movie that makes money, that erode and diminish the original experience (did someone say George Lucas?). But there are those rare occasions where a story so well told begs for a sequel…

For me one of those such times is the 1964 classic 633 Squadron, based on Frederick E. Smith’s novel of the same name. Although hinted at in the book, the movie leaves the story of Grenville and Hilde hanging: she’s stranded in England, he’s seriously injured, possibly dying, in a Norwegian field…

Rather than succumb to the current plague of remaking of classic movies, I’d like to see that sequel that answers that question, that fulfils the expectation set at the end of the book (sorry, you’ll have to read it!). Smith wrote another five or six sequels to the original novel but I always felt that these were rather 2D products more focussing on paying the rent than developing the promise of the original. Only Operation Valkyrie comes close and possibly it would be a vehicle for the sequel that closes both the Svartfjord story and that of Grenville and Hilde, Adams, Hoppy and the other survivors;  and whatever happened to Maisie (Rosie in the movie) the buxom lass who waved them all off from the bar of the Black Swan…?

For the boys…