B-17's used in the film "The War Lover" !

Two B-17 scrapped after the film….that’s not good!

Planetrace:

Thanks for filling in some of the details here on the B-17’s use in the film. The mere thought of two rare B-17’s going to way of the scrap heap is a bit hard to take. To bad the warbird restoration movement & Duxford wasn’t around then. Might have saved those airplanes for future generations to enjoy.

Thanks!
BlueNoser352!

Thanks, TJ.

It’s a nice movie: hardly any brains required to follow the plot, nice Raquel Welch footage in the first part and nice B-17 footage in the last.

Cheers, Transall.

Hi,

While we’re on the subject of B-17’s in 1960’s movies…

I recently saw “The biggest bundle of them all” starring Raquel Welch. There was also a B-17 in that movie which I believe was filmed on location in Italy.
Does anyone which B-17 that was and what became of it?

Cheers, Transall.

I taped that from TCM recently, and asked the same question on another forum. The answer I got was that it was an IGN B-17 which seems natural as there is also a military painted Broussard next to it with Italian (red/green/white) flashes on the tail instead of the French (blue/red/white).

T J

Hi,

While we’re on the subject of B-17’s in 1960’s movies…

I recently saw “The biggest bundle of them all” starring Raquel Welch. There was also a B-17 in that movie which I believe was filmed on location in Italy.
Does anyone which B-17 that was and what became of it?

Cheers, Transall.

Yeah, but they were going to use the 12 O’clock High footage and I think it was easier to try and blend the MB footage converted to black and white than trying to match the color tints of MB. Depends on what source you quote, but supposedly the tone of the film, the dreariness of the English weather, etc, lent itself to the B&W film. And it does.

A fourth B17 was used in the war lover, 44-83811 a former IDF aircraft, the fuselage was used by Columbia pictures for internal shots, the aircraft ended its days at Croydon airport before eventually being scrapped.

Septic.

One of the reasons TWL was filmed in black and white was to allow them to resuse footage from both Twelve O’Clock High and the original Memphis Belle.

Wasn’t Wyler’s Memphis Belle shot in colour!

Septic.

Don Lykins and Ed Maloney from the Air Museum flew N3713G (44-83684) for the low-level buzz job at Santa Maria, California, for the 1000 Plane Raid sequence. Tallman was involved with that production with the Tallmantz B-17G, N83525, and Aircraft Specialties with N17W (42-29782).

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The Tallmantz plane was a Douglas-built B-17G 44-83525.
Mantz was not involved in the 1000 Plane Raid because he has been killed a few years before filming Flight of the Phoenix…

Don Lykins and Ed Maloney from the Air Museum flew N3713G (44-83684) for the low-level buzz job at Santa Maria, California, for the 1000 Plane Raid sequence. Tallman was involved with that production with the Tallmantz B-17G, N83525, and Aircraft Specialties with N17W (42-29782).

Take a look at Final Cut: The Postwar B-17 Flying Fortress for information on all these B-17s (http://www.aerovintage.com/final.htm).

I rather think that the Paul Mantz bits in “The Thousand Plane Raid” were cribbed from “Twelve O’clock High”. Certainly it’s got THAT belly landing in it, and it has got a shedload of footage cribbed from Wyler’s “Memphis Belle”… On the bright side, the film DOES mention Ridgewell – only movie I’ve ever heard mention it…

Adrian

The belly landing B-17 by Paul Matz was done for the film Twelve O’clock High. Just as an aside the low flying sequence where Steve McQueen buzzes the airfield was actually done, not a camera trick – now that is flying.

Didn’t Mantz or Tallman do a wild low level buzz job for a movie called “The 1000 Plane raid” or something like that? B-17s in the early 60s if I’m not mistaken. Have a photo of it in a book somewhere!

T J

Thanks to this fine group for the information…the magazine you refer to here DavidB, is that the new edition of “FLYPAST” (March 2005!)

Thanks !
BlueNoser352

No – its a Key Publishing special issue called “B17 Tribute”. If you go into the Key online shop you will find it under “Special Magazines”. Also currently available in WHSmiths etc.

The War Lover

Came a bit late to this but – three B-17s were flown in from America to take part in the film: 44-83563 (N9563Z0, 44-83877 (N5232V) and 44-83883 (N5229V). Only N9563Z returned to the USA. The other two were damaged during filming and to save the cost of repairs, and the fact that import dutie would have to be paid the the UK Government if they were to stay in UK longer than the time period specified, they were both scrapped. The belly landing B-17 by Paul Matz was done for the film Twelve O’clock High. Just as an aside the low flying sequence where Steve McQueen buzzes the airfield was actually done, not a camera trick – now that is flying.

The title of the book is “Everything But The Flak“, written by Martin Caiden in the mid sixties.. Long out of print, but still well worth looking for.

Thanks to this fine group for the information…the magazine you refer to here DavidB, is that the new edition of “FLYPAST” (March 2005!)

Thanks !
BlueNoser352

The book if I recall was titled something like, “A Wing and a Prayer”

Another one was “belly landed” by Capt John Crewdson(?) at Bovingdon – I think it was actually taxied at high speed and the undercarriage retracted – a trick later employed by the same pilot(?) on at least one Mosquito during the filming of “633 Squadron” a couple of years later – also at Bovingdon.

This was actually recycled footage from another film (Twelve O’Clock High?). The close ups were then shot using the wingless fuselage section they had.

One of the reasons TWL was filmed in black and white was to allow them to resuse footage from both Twelve O’Clock High and the original Memphis Belle.

I recall seeing a photo of one of the B-17s taken at Manston. I believe it had suffered relatively minor damage (tailwheel or something) which was deemed “beyond economic repair” and I think it was subsequently scrapped on site.

Another one was “belly landed” by Capt John Crewdson(?) at Bovingdon – I think it was actually taxied at high speed and the undercarriage retracted – a trick later employed by the same pilot(?) on at least one Mosquito during the filming of “633 Squadron” a couple of years later – also at Bovingdon.

There is an article about this in the new “B-17 Tribute” from Key which coincidentally I read this morning…. Three were used for the filming and afterwards the best parts were put together into what is now “Fuddy Duddy” which returned to the US to do a promotional tour for the film (and allegedly dropped advertising flyers over major cities!!). The other two plus an additional fuselage section which was used during filming were sold to a scrap dealer here in the UK and broken up.

For more info get the magazine! 😉 🙂

Septic wrote an article about it some years back. I’m sure he’ll pop up with the full SP in due course.