B17 Nose Art in Memphis Belle

Platoon & Full Metal Jacket are great Vietnam flicks, Oliver Stone & Stanley Kubric.

I didn’t care for the Thin Red Line, thought the movie was slow & not enough action. Now Patton, that’s a great movie! Longest Day is great too!

Dave,

Im a big fan of the recent Terrence Mallick Thin Red Line. A great approach to a sensitive subject. It was also one of the few times where i have seen an ensemble cast of this size produce such a great combined performance in a film of this genre. If you take ‘The Longest Day’ for example, then it is full of excellent actors who all deliver the goods to some respect but still stay within their star persona. John Wayne for example.

The original Thin Red Line can be found at

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058648/

I have only seen clips from bost versions of A.Q.O.T.W.F, I have access to both versions so will give them a thorough watch or two each over the summer.

i think Ive seen The Heroes but it was as a child so can’t really remember too much about it,

The video installation will indeed be about Bomber Command. It will be quiet different to many approaches Ive seen on the subject of Bomber Command, I ahve an interesting if not unique concept of how to display the footage.

best regards, steve

Sounds great Steve.

The video installation – is it still about Bomber Command? Imagine if you could do one actually inside a bomber in a museum, that’s be great.

Have you seen both versions of All Quiet on the Western Front? The one with John-boy Walton and Ian Holm is a seriously good film, but the original is also god from vague memory.

I never knew there were two Thin Red Line films. I have the recent, popular one. A bit strange. I wish that a proper film about the Pacific war could be made. Windtalkers was an utter joke, and Thin Red Line was good but too way out for most people to get.

Most other Pacific war films involve musical numbers, or worse, Lee Marvin. Plus Hollywood makes it look like it was just the Japs vs the Yanks in the Pacific. Films never acknowledge that many other countries took part too. However there have been a few cracking Australian-made TV programmes that covered it very well. One was The Sullivans, another was a mini-series called The Heroes and a very recent one was called Changi.

A couple of films on your list I’ve not heard of. I’m off to look them up.

Will be referencing.

Both Memphis Belles
All Quiet on the Western Front
Saving Private Ryan
Paths of Glory
The Dam Busters
Ashes and Diamonds
Kanal
A Generation
The Thin Red Line (both versions)
The Longest Day
Full Metal Jacket
Platoon
Casualties of War
TigerLand

This is very preliminary and off the top of my head but shows a few anyhow.

Im doing BA Hons Photo Video. I have three options for when I finish, do a masters, do another degree or ahve a year out. Dont want a full time job just yet unless it is relative to my field 😀

Ive made a few documentaries, one on Concordes retirement. Thats the closest relation to aviation. The most interetsing one though was the story of a market trader who sells puppets. At the moment Im making a short film which combines live action and animation about decaying buildings.

I was planning a Bomber Command piece but the idea has changed into a video installation.

steve

Hi Steve.

I’m in my third year of a BA in Screen and Media. Your topic sounds great, all those hous of watching old war films.

I’m doing a year-long directed study at the moment learning about documentary making techniques, and I have chosen to make a doco film about the social side of the RNZAF during the war. It’s fascinating discovering some of the stories. I’m including all types, not just pilots.

For example I interviewed one lady who was a WAAF technical librarian – sounds boring till you hear that she had a highly specialised and secret job and the aircraft of the RNZAF right across the country and the Pacific were dependent on her on a daily basis as to whether they could fly or not. She had some great social stories of barracks life and going to dances with the Americans (who regularly spiked girls drinks!!) etc. too. Her fiance was killed in a raid over Europe, and she later met and married another airman. Her Dad was also in the RNZAF, and he had been given the secret task that if the Japs invaded he had to blow up RNZAF Harewood (now Christchurch International Airport!)

It has also been a great excuse to film in a few aircraft museums too.

Which films are you concentrating on for the dissertation? Or are there too many to name?

I know one thing, even though I’ve been getting consistently high grades, I’m defiantely not going on to do Honours or Masters. I’m busting to get out into the real world again and earn some real money. Fingers crossed for next year.

What Uni course are you doing Dave? Im writing my Dissertation on the portrayal of 20th century warfare in film.

I just found this thread from last year which backs up what I was saying above about the Belle.

http://forum.airforces.info/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16758&highlight=first+25+missions

I did a lot of research last year into the two film versions as i was comparing the two in an essay for a documentary course I was studying at university. I am certain I came across a second B17 other than Hell’s Angels that also beat the Belle to 25 missions. I can’t find where I found this info now. 😡

I’m sure that the crew members won’t have all flown teir 25 missions in tha Belle either, as the films imply. Even if you had a regular plane you sometimes had to borrow another.

Dave

And another thing, the original film by William Wyler does not actually strictly follow the Belle’s final mission either. Camera crews flew on several missions in several aircraft to get the footage. Some camera crews were even shot down and killed.

And a significant amount wasn’t even filmed in Europe because they had problems with the film they’d taken and it was no good. So pick-up shots were done with the Belle’s crew in the USA once they’d got home. I’m not even sure if they were in the real Belle for these shots but I assumethey were.

This is why it took a year before the film was released because they had such production problems. Most propaganda was banged out quickly.

It is a great film, but has as much a mix of fact and fiction as the 1990 version, which as we know was not based on the truth of the final mission at all.

As far as I am aware, the Memphis Belle was NOT the first B17 to complete 25 missions. And neither was its crew for that matter. It was a propaganda PR thing. Yes its crew completed 25 missions, but at least two other crews had already completed 25 missions as far as I’m aware.

If any of you would like to see the REAL Memphis Belle, just Visit Memphis Tennesee where it is on Disnply, oddly enough, I don’t think it was ever in the Smithsonian Museum, even though it was the first American B-17 bomber to complete 25 missions. I would like to see her for myself.

Excellent photos Mike. I’d never seen Gee Whiz before, must have missed it every time in the film.

Is it just the way it’s loading onto my PC or is C Cup’s photo file a bit corrupted?

Dave,
Have a look at
http://www.91stbombgroup.com/
Steve:D

Thanks Steve,

Nice to know they used real aircraft names for all. Were the particular aircraft that were lost in the film really shot down I wonder?

Dave

Dave,
All of the names are from 8th AF B17`s that flew with the 91st (H) Bomb Group.
The 91st BG flew from Bassingbourn from 1942- 1945.
Steve 😀

Fluctuate in opinion or resolution.

I other words:

‘Will she or won’t she’ 😉

Mark

Cheers Papa Lima,

I just found it in another dictionary – and another meaning is ‘keep changing one’s mind’, so it really refers to most women. 🙂

Try looking up “vacillating”!
“Swaying to and fro”, “wavering”, “unsteady”