Poll: The Ultimate WWII Air Combat Movie???

[Spoons - SimHQ]

"Piece of Cake?"  Never heard of it.  Have to grab that one for sure!  Thanks!

633 Squadron WAS cheesy....the airplane models were, well, let's just say it took away the "immersiveness" of the movie.  

I think the most cheesy aviation video prop is of that damn US Navy Panther (or was it a Cougar?) smashing into the flight deck.  I've seen that thing in movies ranging from Midway (um, about ten years too early, boys) to The Hunt for Red October (um, about 30 years too late, boys).  Anyone else know the one I'm talking about?


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John Sponauer
Senior Editor, SimHQ.com
jsponauer@simhq.com

[Andy Bush]

If you want realism, then get 'Piece Of Cake', by Derek Robinson. The book, not the BBC series.

Best movie...Twelve O'clock High. It's been used as a leadership course reference for the USAF Academy for many years.

[Andy Bush]

JimBear

I like your style.

Andy

[Brazos]

633 Squadron is mine.

[StSanta]

Piece of Cake was great.

And not much of that American "we're heroes and infallible and really great guys in general and we will make it and breed little republican/democrat future heroes with out beautiful wives" stuff.

I like it low and dirty, like in Real Life(tm)  

Hollywood, go to hell. Wait, that's my home, go to Washington.  


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StSanta
II/JG2

[Saintaw]

Tora, tora tora & Midway for me  

[SFRT - Frenchy]

BoB
I saw the Tuskesee Airmen a couple of month ago, not bad too but it's more a 'tribute to people personality' rather than an epic furball. I like the realization.
And I'm still surprised that those guys blew up a destroyer with guns.

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Olivier "Frenchy" Raunier
       www.sfrt.net

[This message has been edited by SFRT - Frenchy (edited 06-03-2000).]

[Swoop]

There was a series......made for and by British TV (cant remember if it was the BBC or an independant).  Cant remember what it was called either.....

But I do rememeber it started with the Battle  of France and one of the pilots was called Flt Lt Catterall.....or Catty to everyone else.  And and and in the final episode he got shot down by a 190 (head on, 4 bullets in the chest) and his last word was "Bugger" before crashing into a tree.

Anyone else rememeber this series?

Swoop

[Voss]

From BlockBusters Search Engine:

 

Fighter Squadron

Actors: Edmond O'Brien, Robert Stack, John Rodney, Tom D'Andrea, Henry Hull
Director: Raoul Walsh
Category: Action : War
Rated:
Running Time: 96 minutes
Year Released: 1948

Excellent Technicolor photography, principally in the aerial scenes, is the main asset of the cliché-ridden Fighter Squadron. Set in the months just prior to D-Day, the plot zeroes in on Marjor Ed Hardin (Edmond O'Brien) leader of a squadron of fearless combat pilots. In keeping with the conventions of the era, the training and flying sequences are counterbalanced with comic byplay involving wheeler-dealer Sergeant Dolan (Tom D'Andrea), whose flippant attitudes towards the opposite sex are a bit hard to take today. Far more effective is the performance of 15-year-old Jack Larson, making his screen debut in the role of a rookie pilot who grows up in a hurry after scoring his first kill (Larson later gained TV immortality as Jimmy Olsen on Superman). Also making his first screen appearance, in a role so small it isn't even billed, is a former truck driver named Rock Hudson. -- Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

 

[-duma-]

I'm surprised few people have mentioned the Dambusters, I was fairly impressed by the realisation of the low-level raid and anti-aircraft fire... oh well  

[Andy Bush]

Swoop

That sounds like the TV version of Piece Of Cake.

In the book, Cattermole (called Moggy) was not such a sympathetic figure. The TV series played loose with the characters in the book...the book was not kind in its portrayal of air combat and its participants in the BOB.

[Crapgame]

Voss, Fighter Squadron is cheesy but still a kick in the butt...especially for WW2 aviation buffs. The featured FG flies P47s and the Germans are equipped with olive painted, swastika bedecked P51s which are no match for the Jug pilots.. I have a taped copy of the film. Haven't been able to find it on VHS or DVD. Every now and then TNT will play it though and you can tape it.


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2nd Lt. Crapgame
62nd F.S.
56th F.G. "Zemke's Wolfpack"

[Dadman]

Gents,

Best realistic stunt flying sequences- Tora Tora Tora

Best Dogfighting- Battle of Britain

Classics- 12 O'clock High, The Dam Busters

Best Documentary- Target For Today- The Might Eigth Over Germany

Worst- The upcoming "epic" Pearl

Dadman

[Vulcan]

You're all DWEEBS!

Everyone knows Top Gun was the best ever babey...

Only just beating out The Final Countdown - you know - US supercarrier gets transported back in time to Pearl Harbour - and features that awesomely satisfying sequence where a pair of F-14s do a couple of Zeke dweebs.

-vlkn- in

[SOB]

 

Originally posted by Citabria:
tora tora tora on laserdisc in widescreen rocks  

Thanks!  This got me thinking...a quick check over at reel.com and Tora! Tora! Tora! is on the way to me on widescreen DVD   Also found a boxed set of five U.S. War Department documentaries on DVD about World War II with newsreel and combat footage!

SOB