In the "Chicago Tribune", Gene Siskel stated "We believe American film audiences are no longer impressed by casts of thousands and budgets of millions. Unfortunately, Harry Saltzman, who produced 'The Battle of Britain,' disagrees. The film is a 12-thousand-megadollar bomb that features 100 vintage planes eating up 40 minutes of film. The film has absolutely no dramatic Interest in the other 93 minutes, and I challenge the notion that it is worth seeing just for the aerial sequences." He later placed it on his list of the twenty worst films to have been released that year; commenting on the audience reaction to the aerial footage, he remarked that "the planes had the only good lines in the film." Remarking on the same footage, Roger Ebert wrote that "the aerial scenes are allowed to run forever and repeat themselves shamelessly, until we're sure we saw that same Heinkel dive into the sea (sorry – the "drink") three times already. And the special effects aren't all that good for a movie that cost $12,000,000."