Our film is as much an historical study of Britain's psychological, if not almost physical, need for something - anything - to erase the woes of World War II as it is a fresh look at the quest for the first sub-4:00 mile, the heretofore deemed physically impossible. Before the war, Britain had bloomed best in its Sporting Tradition, but the amateur accolades leading to Olympic accomplishments were blown off the podiums in the 1952 Helsinki Games. Roger Bannister was the epitome of that disappearing scholar-athlete ideal. Can the lunchtime-trained runner immersed in his medical school studies inject the booster shot into Britain's flagging but still flickering morale?

The 6th of May, 1954, Roger Bannister became the first man to better four-minutes for the mile. Since that day, more people have reached the summit of Everest, than have matched Bannister's feat. But before Bannister could make history, he first had to survive World War II...