There’s a good reason why World War II movies are practically a genre all to their own. From Operation Paperclip to the evacuation of Dunkirk to Operation Mincemeat, the real-world stories behind history’s deadliest war might just be more cinematic than fiction could ever hope to be. That probably explains why “Peaky Blinders” creator Steven Knight has rummaged through the recorded past in order to craft the plot for the upcoming movie. In a 2022 interview with the Radio Times, Knight opened up about how he’s pulling from “three true stories” as a source of inspiration:
“I’ve had this in mind for quite a while now, a story with the Peakys during the Second World War, and I’ve picked up three true stories that I’m integrating into the film. True, sort of secret and unknown stories about the Second World War, and [I’ve] involved the Peaky’s in there.”
“I’m always interested because with the Second World War there was so much going on and so much death and destruction, that lots of things happened that didn’t really make it into the history books. So it’s those things I’m focusing on.”
The possibilities are endless, given the staggering amount of material to pull from and all the unexpected ways that the Peaky Blinders could find themselves roped into things. Murphy, himself no stranger to the time period between Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk” and the upcoming “Oppenheimer,” should easily sink his teeth into what should be fraught circumstances for Tommy.
“Peaky Blinders” is currently streaming on Netflix.