We could put the word out that one of them’s a Cylon agent and watch them tear themselves apart.

The Longest Day.

Tora, Tora, Tora comes close too.

Hmm. Take your point. But these films show a broad vista of what’s going on, to a variety of characters and (to an extent) politically. I was thinking more along the lines of a single, virtually real time mission by a single unit/squadron.

BTW: As much as I hate to, I’ll defend (to a point) Pearl Harbor…. Anything that presents history to young people so maybe they apprecaite the war veterans more than they did when they walked into the theater isn’t all bad.

Did Pearl Harbor do this? Did it not present veterans as (take your pick) loudmouths/bullies/simpletons/jocks and otherwise people who impregnate their thought-to-be-dead best friend’s girlfriend but then have the good grace to conveniently die to bring the shaky plot to a neat conclusion? This is a problem I sometimes have with war films, in that I have my doubts that the real people fighting wars ever looked or acted like they are portrayed to have done!

I didn’t think Flyboys was nearly as bad as some people made out though.

Also depends on what you call a war film. My wife loved things like ‘A Canterbury Tale’, ‘A Matter of Life and Death’ and ‘Cottage to Let’, but is bored rigid by ‘Battle of Britain’ and ‘A Bridge Too Far’. I’m not sure she’d think of the former as ‘war films’.

My favourites tend to be films like ‘Battle of the River Plate’ which dispense with the usual nonsense designed to bring in a wider audience (Susannah York in her undies whinging at Christopher Plummer to the strains of ‘A Nightingale Sang in Barclay Square’ for example) and concentrate purely on the action and the characters involved. At the other end of the spectrum, films in which the war is virtually a backdrop, such as ‘The Way to the Stars’ or the aforementioned ‘AMoLaD’, which are all about the human story. It’s the likes of ‘Battle of Britain’ and ‘Dark Blue World’ which try to squeeze in both that seem to fall down where the critics are concerned.

In some cases – the risible Pearl Harbor springs painfully to mind – they are absolutely right.

I’d like to see the war film equivalent of Steve Macqueen’s ‘Le Mans’, where virtually the entire film is about what happens in the race. The only concession to traditional feature film conventions is a barely mentioned subtext about Macqueen’s character’s guilt over the death of a former team-mate, expressed entirely in a few awkward, longing looks between Macqueen and the team-mate’s widow, and a brief flashback. The rest does what it says on the tin. A real time ‘ramrod’ in 1941 perhaps?

Agreed, really good.

One question though. Were there really DH4s in ‘Hell’s Angels’? If so I missed them! Only saw SE5as and Fokker DVIIs.

A bit like my DC-4 choice in post 6 you mean JDK?:rolleyes:

XN923, must admit I lost sight of the brief, my fault. What I was getting at was that the Halifax was designed and built to a spec as a four engined heavy (more successfully than the Stirling) and led to the lay out of most British bombers afterwards, where as the Lancaster really came from a failed twin engine type that the manufacturer had the foresight to develop into a four engined bomber afterwards.

Not quite – S.13/36 originally called for a twin, and Handley Page designed their aircraft first as a twin. They were very sceptical about two engines per wing as it would require a big redesign into new territory, big weight gain and increased complexity. Shorts, meanwhile, came along with their flying boat experience and quietly put four powerful engines on before the acknowledged big bomber ‘experts’ – in a spec (S.12/36) that actually asked for four engines. Chadwick wanted to put four Merlins on a Manchester for quite some time, it wasn’t a case of ‘me too’ following the relative success of the Halifax and failure of the Manchester. Either you go for the best of the three, the Lancaster, or the first, the Stirling, in my view.

Not sure the Lanc is a good choice influence wise, didn’t the also successful Halifax pre-date it?

Successful but far less so. Both originated from the same Air Ministry specification for a medium bomber (though both became heavies). Avro had to fight somewhat against Air Ministry scepticism, but it is testament to the Lancaster’s brilliance that it quickly became the RAF’s main heavy. Whichever way you cut it, the Lanc was a brilliant aircraft, the Halifax merely a good one. Lanc led to York, Lancastrian, Lincoln, Tudor and Shackleton. Halifax led to Halton, Hermes and Hastings. Greater influence?

I’ve gone for the Stirling as truly the first RAF heavy.

Superlative!!!!!

I cannot wait for this airshow season…

I have some bits – will PM you