SPITFIRE BIRD
 

Have a feeling a few of you might like this - the video if not the audio too.

How bizarre, & pleseantly entertaining!!

Bizarre coincidence dept.! Whilst I was watching the Spitfire thingy above, I had the TV on as well...and some chap in the Bargain Hunt programme was buying a WW2 gun camera..complete with film cartridge..for £45. It remains to be seen how much it will sell for at auction...

Lovely combination of 40's imagery and more contemporary music, thank you.

Doubt the authenticity of the R.J Mitchell "Spitfire bird" quotes though. He hated the name and, when told of the naming decision, is quoted as saying
"just the sort of bloody silly name they would choose."

"40's imagery" is certainly what it is! I recognised many (if not all) of the scenes as being from the 1942 film, 'The First of the Few', with Leslie Howard playing designer and engineer Reginald Mitchell, and David Niven as a character named Geoffrey Crisp, which some believe to be based on Jeffrey Quill, a test pilot at Vickers.

To it's credit, at the end of the video the movie is acknowledged!

Buckin frilliant. That was an enjoyable 4 minutes :ok:

Just found that 'The First of the Few' is available as a free download from
The First of the Few : British Aviation Pictures : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive


PS
Just found this little film on that site as well
The Last Bomb : US Army Air Forces : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive

Brilliant :ok:

If I could be re-born.......

I'm sure I saw Angels One Five in there as well along with some Hurricanes!

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg

Damn good movie though, as is First of the Few and Reach For The Skies :ok:

LJ

Yup, Hawker Hurricanes at 1min 48secs :ugh:

That comes from the original film
Also explains why in the film the closeup of the guns firing shows loose wing fabric material around the gun barrel openings

Excellent. Almost embarrassed myself at work. :O Thanks, backseatjock. :ok:

Might suit the microsecond attention span of today's 'yoof' but I really cannot imagine ANY of those originally involved viewing it with anything but amazed horror - particularly with that mind-numbing background noise - I'm referring to what passes for music nowadays. Awful, awful, awful!!!:yuk:

The really ironic thing is that the Motorik beat music style is directly cribbed from 1970's German "Kraut Rock" bands such as Neu! / Harmonia / Can / Kluster
The drumming is a direct copy of Klaus Dinger's style and the tape edit vocal technique from Holger Czukay. The guitar work is much like Michael Rother's as well
Maybe thats why I like it......

Question

That film was released in 1942
To what extent would the knowledge of the design / build of the aircraft be secret by then? How well known was the all metal construction? I just wondered if the closeup of the Hurricane guns firing was an attempt at hiding something they wanted kept secret??

Milo - quite so, and quite so. Although it should have gone on for a bit longer to be true to the original.

Bit sobering to realise that there were only eleven years (as far as I can tell) between the last operational Spitfire (running met flights) and the formation of Can.

Weren't 'live' guns identified by having material stuck over the gun ports & painted red....? So it would have been the same for a Spit or a Hurricane (at that stage of the war)..?

There isn't any detail that identifies that shot of the gun ports being particularly from either 'plane - but does only show two clearly metal ports.

For everyone except Cornish Jack, you may be interested to know that the band, Public Service Broadcasting, have an EP coming out, avbl via the tunes of eye on 28th May. It's a 5 track EP done in conjunction with the BFI where they have accompanied 5 film tracks or radio broadcasts from WW2. The EP is called The War Room and you can hear it on their website (might be on FB, forgotten).

Utterley brilliant band and vid.:)

Thanks McWSO!:ok:

Who did that soundtrack I wonder (the musical one!)

Great stuff. :ok:

Al R - re the band wot did the soundtrack - please see the post before yours (ie mine!). Indeed, great stuff.