Dry but interesting British docudrama on the history of flight. There's some real footage of people and events for the more recent episodes. The older stuff is shown through dramatic reenactments, some of which are kind of fun. The plane stuff might appeal to aviation buffs but I liked the older stuff. My favorites are the earliest scenes which show a bunch of morons in ancient times jumping off of buildings trying to fly and failing, including Simon the magician. These scenes would be greatly improved if they featured the Goofy holler ("Yaaaaaaa-hoo-hoo-hoo-hooey!"). The cast is fine for what they have to do. The most notable actor in the film is Laurence Olivier and he's only in it briefly. It's not going to be everybody's cup of tea. The narration almost put me to sleep a few times. I think if you're the kind of person who likes the old documentary shorts (I do) then you'll probably find this interesting as it feels like a longer version of one of those.

This is a decent British made (but very biased) film probably an 8 or 9 for an aviation enthusiast from Europe. I'm giving it a 6 although I could have rated it less. I watched it on Turner Classic Movies (USA version) because it was described as a comedy drama featuring Laurence Olivier so that sounded interesting to me. Thinking it was a feature film I was surprised that it was actually a second feature documentary. Laurence Olivier plays one balloonist from the 18th century so with a total time of around 70 minutes and dozens of aviators featured his screen time is about 1 minute long and he plays an Italian! That is probably the highlight of the film actually. It gets pretty boring and actually disappointing when they get to the climatic Wright Brothers who have no actors playing them with lines and their screen time is about 30 seconds. The reenactment did look nice though. Much more time is given to the English Channel crossing (go figure). Then after WWI they skip the round the world flight by the US Army in 1924 and instead talk about a bunch of, you guessed it, European and British Commonwealth aviators. A very very brief mention is given to Lindberg, Earhart, and Wiley Post, probably because they were just too big at the time to be ignored. It finishes with what seems to be a lot of filler material about sea planes which could have easily been shortened, before getting back on track and showing some innovative new planes. It's possible that this was a big infomercial FOR the Imperial Airways Flying Boat business! 6 of 10 may be too generous but the footage of early helicopters and other pioneering planes (auto-car!) and the reenactments will make an aviation buff glad they watched. One thing I figured out in reflection shortly after I finished this is that the British were nurturing ties with the Italians showing a lot of their participation in the air races of the 20's and 30's and definitely could care less about the Americans who had Doolittle (of Raid On Tokyo fame) win the Snyder Cup for 3 years but is never mentioned. I cannot imagine a non aviation buff viewer of 2014 finishing this film. Also, the version I watched had Churchill in it so I probably watched a re-release version and not the one from 1936 unless they were being very prophetic because Churchill was in politics then but not the Prime Minister.

Some of the other reviewers answered certain questions I had about this film. Certainly what I saw today was not the original production of Conquest Of The Air. What apparently this film tried to be was the first docudrama ever done. If someone can recall an earlier one I'll stand corrected. That additional newsreel footage of Winston Churchill who was probably First Lord of the Admiralty when it was shot indicates a second World War had begun which promised and delivered to be more terrible than the last.Taking the story of man's fascination of flying back to ancient mythological days, Conquest Of The Air shows a patient building block like achievement of man trying to get off the ground and travel like the birds. For earlier times they're recreated with players and sets the most prominent being Laurence Olivier. As an educational film Conquest Of The Air is informative, but as entertainment it falls far short of the mark.

What? In 74 years after this film was released, no one has commented on it? So let me be the first :) This is a quite amazing documentary about human flight. The prehistoric part, starting from Icarus, is a bit repetitive - brave winged men crashing from some high place. But once the story comes to the Montgolfiere brothers, Lilienthal, the Wright brothers, Blériot, Zeppelin.. it reaches new heights, so to speak.I was surprised that this film is from 1936.. it felt like coming out of the middle of WWII which started in 1938. But that means it's even more prophetic.Highly recommended to friends of aviation history :) It is available for free streaming or download at archive.org.