WWII Aviation movies you would like to see. (1 Viewer)

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mcindoe.jpg

Second man from the left, standing.

Here's a link to the article, which is located a little bit down on the web page:
Vulch's Heroes of World War II

Mmm, could be him...thanks. I believe that it could have been a documentary on Dr Archibald McIndoe where I became aware of this fellow. I see so many documentary's that they tend to blend together sometimes (lol)...
 
QUESTION? When someone says that they would like to see a movie made about operation "Bodenplatte" or the defense of Malta, what are you expecting to see? Are you expecting to see the proper aeroplanes battling each other? Or are you expecting to see the Generals getting worked up about their war plans and then the drama of how it all plays out? I'm curious?
Well
as I pointed out in the original post
Bodenplatte could pan out as a movie in a similar fashion to Tora! Tora! Tora! Open with some air-to-air shots of the Allies and the Luftwaffe sparring with each other. There would be a build-up to the execution with the German commanders consolidating for a massive 3000-fighter confrontation of the 8th AF, having their plans thwarted and re-doing them for a mass attack on a range of Allied airfields.

It could keep panning back to the Allies and what they're up to concurrently. The finale could be the actual attack with a summation of what was achieved (the back of the Jadgwaffe broken) by a senior Luftwaffe commander in much the same way as a Japanese senior Naval commander summed up what Pearl Harbour had achieved (awaking a sleeping giant etc) at the end of the original film.

'Proper aeroplanes' obviously isn't going to happen. I'm not all that bothered about swarms of CGI fighters, as long as the film is factually based. The CGI for 'Pearl Harbor' was excellent (in my opinion), the film was a spectacular flop for other reasons.

Simplistic parallels to draw, maybe, just off-the-top-of-my-head ideas as to why it might work.
 
...would love to see a good BC movie, frankly I would have preferred one to the new Dam Busters remake.
Forgot about that, so we've got remakes of

The Dam Busters
Tuskegee Airmen and
The Flying Tigers

in the pipeline; we're not doing too bad for aviation movies after all :)
 
How about a story on that great Aussie Donald Bennett, the guy who made air recce an art , the Head of Ferry Command, VC as head of Pathfinders
 
Maybe a film about Pokryshkin and Kozhedub
chronicling their rise to 'stardom' in the Soviet Air Force from boyhood, to pilot training, their kills and escapades to their meeting after the war for an award/propaganda photo shoot. Could be interesting, in real life they were as different in personality as chalk and cheese.
 
".. But Ferry Command? How would you stretch that into a movie?"

Colin :)
My uncle, Arthur Dinsmore, was a Ferry Command !st Officer. Went overseas in 1915 with his Dad's Artillery Battery. Got to France - saw the air war and transferred into the Royal Flying Corps - with difficulty (Sgt Major his father, my Grand Dad, delayed his transfer). Arthur had his wings by war end was waiting for assignment. Through the '20's and '30's he kept his hours up on his own $$. In 1939 he was hired as a civilian pilot - flying Ansons training Navigators and other Crew. When Ferry Command was created by the British and Canadians Art joined immediately and spent the war flying disarmed B-24's all over the globe - with FC Communications Squadron - mostly down to Bermuda and on south then across the South Atlantic to Africa thence to South India. The crew were never allowed to see the "manifesto" of goods or personalities on board.

I digress here but there most surly is a STORY in Ferry Command ... I just told you one :). And it's a TRUE one, too. :)

MM
 
".. But Ferry Command? How would you stretch that into a movie?"

Colin :)
My uncle, Arthur Dinsmore, was a Ferry Command !st Officer. Went overseas in 1915 with his Dad's Artillery Battery. Got to France - saw the air war and transferred into the Royal Flying Corps - with difficulty (Sgt Major his father, my Grand Dad, delayed his transfer). Arthur had his wings by war end was waiting for assignment. Through the '20's and '30's he kept his hours up on his own $$. In 1939 he was hired as a civilian pilot - flying Ansons training Navigators and other Crew. When Ferry Command was created by the British and Canadians Art joined immediately and spent the war flying disarmed B-24's all over the globe - with FC Communications Squadron - mostly down to Bermuda and on south then across the South Atlantic to Africa thence to South India. The crew were never allowed to see the "manifesto" of goods or personalities on board.

I digress here but there most surly is a STORY in Ferry Command ... I just told you one :). And it's a TRUE one, too. :)

MM

Their was a James Cagney movie that had him ferrying bombers across the Atlantic...its called "Captains Of The Clouds" and came out in 1941.

Captains of the Clouds (1942)
 
I digress here but there most surely is a STORY in Ferry Command ... I just told you one :). And it's a TRUE one, too. :)
No digression
I don't possess any in-depth or anecdotal knowledge of the activities of Ferry Command, it just didn't sound like box-office material ferrying large aircraft around the N Atlantic.

I think there is a difference between what was accepted for movie material in 1942 and what is expected for movie material in 2009. In 1942 cinematic capability was far more limited and there was a war on, alot of films were made to generally support the war effort. Cinema was a top-of-the-list form of entertainment in the absence of TV for everyone, PC gaming and xBox. You went to watch and enjoyed because that was what there was and you were doing your bit supporting the war effort.

Nowadays we've become far more self-indulgent and expectations are higher, we need x fights, y car-crashes, z jet aircraft blowing up huge buildings full of bad guys. Could a film about Ferry Command realistically supply us with that whilst remaining factually based?
 
No digression
I don't possess any in-depth or anecdotal knowledge of the activities of Ferry Command, it just didn't sound like box-office material ferrying large aircraft around the N Atlantic.

I think there is a difference between what was accepted for movie material in 1942 and what is expected for movie material in 2009. In 1942 cinematic capability was far more limited and there was a war on, alot of films were made to generally support the war effort. Cinema was a top-of-the-list form of entertainment in the absence of TV for everyone, PC gaming and xBox. You went to watch and enjoyed because that was what there was and you were doing your bit supporting the war effort.

Nowadays we've become far more self-indulgent and expectations are higher, we need x fights, y car-crashes, z jet aircraft blowing up huge buildings full of bad guys. Could a film about Ferry Command realistically supply us with that whilst remaining factually based?

Hence the story of Donald Bennett something wiki doesn't mention is his flying all over germany prior to the war in a Lockheed 10 or 12 cameras hidden all over the place doing recce
Don Bennett - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Exactly, PB :) Great character.

Personally I'd do a TV series on "the antics" a flight of young female Air Service pilots flying P-39's, Bostons, Mitchells and the like to Alaska .. for the Russians to collect. :) Art did some of that work, PBY's from a Boeing operation in Montreal, I believe.

MM
 
My vote definitely for Erich Hartmann: the Black Devil.
It's got all the Hollywood elements, a young narcissist starts his career midwar as an unremarkable but very well trained pilot. A veritable nobody, he joins "the aces squadron" JG52 and is shot down several times with little success as the war becomes desperate for Germany, the Eastern Front becomes a death trap, overwhelming enemy air superiority and suddenly, out of nowhere this youth finds his niche. He starts taking down the enemy by the squadron every outing...
By 1944 he has become suddenly so highly regarded that he is presented with his latest Iron Cross adornment by Hitler himself...is asked to remove his sidearm in the Führer's presence...and refuses. If our Führer does not trust me, he says, then the war is lost. He met Hitler with gun in holster, the only regular officer to do so at this stage of the war, Galland was beside himself. He joked and laughed as the Führer complimented him as one of the Luftwaffe's best.
He refused to fly anything but the BF-109G in combat. And he discerning about quality, if the construction standards were not up to his requirements he would refuse a new model and requisition an older one from the training squadrons instead and fly that. Through most of 1944 he flew the 1943 build model, though it is fairly likely these were field-modified with certain update equipment such as MW50 boost and G14-standard pilot instrumentation (this was not at all uncommon by about mid-44 and virtually mandatory for aces). When promoted to fly the new Me-262 jet he requested a demotion and reassignment back to an Me-109G squadron based in Hungary/Czechoslovakia, where he fought until the end of the war.
As a postscript he surrendered to a US armoured unit but was handed over the Russians as a "priority prisoner" therafter spending the next 10 in hard labour at the Gulags, which individuals such as Galland and Rall have said had a profound and damaging effect upon him, sadly.
In any case the title of the highest scoring fighter ace in history is definitely worth a movie. He makes Manfred von Richtofen look like a beginner.


Of course, Marsielle deserves a movie too, the Star of Africa. More like a movie star than a fighter ace, Rall said the only thing greater than his talent for flying was a love of women, which he says stunted his career until stationed in Africa, where there were no women to keep you up at night and distracted in the cockpit. That's pretty interesting too, and the career cut short fits the anti-hero theme of a German WW2 fighter ace Hollywood likes.
 
Bader, Stanford-Tuck or any other british/german ace could be fun/interesting to watch too.

There is an old film about the story of Douglas Bader actually, I saw it as a kid in the 80's.
I don't remember the name, but it may have been 'Fight for the skies' after the title of his autobiography (?)



Syscom, you mentioned the lack of airworthy aircraft for a BoB remake. That was the problem in the 60's already, hence the types used for that version. If the Spanish Air Force hadn't been using Merlin engined Bf 109s (Ha 112s) and He 111s (CASA 2111s) , the 'Germans' would probably have been Mosquito's or Shackletons with crosses painted on!

Any modern interpretation would have to be mostly done with either accurate models or computer graphics as Drgondog said.
 

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