Film The way to the stars

Just watched 12’oclock high again, was suprised at how little actual flying simulated or otherwise is depicted in the film. Most of the tension and emotion is shown through the effects to the crews of the missions .

When you did see aircraft three were quite well depicted
Picadilly Lady
Fuzzy Fuzz [i think]
and of course The leper colony
were these [as i suspect ficticious bombers] or did they really exist as such.
More importantly do any of the B-17’s used in the film still exist?.
Still a great film to watch

The film on BBC2 was ‘The Way to the Stars’ and it does start with the deserted airfield with close up camera views of items left behind when the base was closed. In most cases the items being involved with one of the last acts of one of the major aircrew characters before they take off on their last mission. Film ends with the British pilot played by John Mills and a B-17 Navigator walking out of the hotel and watching British bombers overhead on their way to Germany, plus of course the poem.

“The Way To The Stars ” was filmed at RAF Catterick(the B-17G shots were filmed at the 384BG Grafton Underwood). It was written by Terence Rattigan. The shots of the overflying Blenheim formation is Bedale High Street where the ficticious Hotel was located.
The “War Lover ” was filmed at Bovingdon and John Crewdson was the piolt on the famous beat up.
“12 O’Clock High” was shot in the USA, and the opening shots were not Chelveston as some people report.

These are a couple of pictures from the Low Passes on the ‘1000 Plane Raid’ film.

See ‘How low can you go’ thread HERE

Steve

‘The War Lover’ had the well known scene where the B-17 literally cuts the grass and was filmed at Bovingdon Hertfordshire.

12’oclock high featured near the beginning, the scene where a B-17 comes in firing flares and bellies in across the grass before coming to rest with bent props. Quite sad to see, as I believe it was done for the film:eek: . 12’oclock high was based on the 100th BG(H) at Thorpe Abbotts UK. With the ficticious base name of ‘Archbury’, the filming did not take place in the UK, the airfield scenes at the start were done in Ohio USA.

I will have to watch 12’oclock high again, i was sure it was the one that had the low flying B-17, but my memory has proved to be {very} dodgy before!

I believe the stunt flying in ‘The War Lover’ was by John Crewdson.

Steve

war lover

didnt steve maqueen do some flying in “war Lover or am i mistaken:cool: 😎 😎

There were two films I recall with low flying B-17’s. One was ‘The War Lover’ in B&W. The other was ‘1000 Plane Raid’ which was colour.

Steve

Yep thats the one i knew it would be an obvious one. I havent seen this film in ages [even though i have a dvd copy!!].It is a film that gets mentioned a lot due to the low flying B-17 but the rest gets muddled up with other films in my adled brain
Cheers

Wasn’t the low flying B17 actually in The War Lover – iirc flown by John Crewsden (?sp). There was a wonderful photo taken looking down on it at (?)Bovingdon circulating here a while ago

Thank you

Yep thats the one i knew it would be an obvious one. I havent seen this film in ages [even though i have a dvd copy!!].It is a film that gets mentioned a lot due to the low flying B-17 but the rest gets muddled up with other films in my adled brain
Cheers

The Way to the Stars

That other film would be ‘Twelve o’clock High ‘ Gregory Peck,Dean Jagger Gary Merrill et al
Cheers , Brian

film

Silly me — I wrote that much too quickly — I will try to remember the title you need.

Distyone

Its one of the classic B&W films about US WW2 bomber ops…starts and ends with the guy looking over the fence at the disused airfield, which slowly comes to life as he relives his experiences there…

and no, it’s title has completely slipped my mind too…

Paul F