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Old 29th Nov 2007, 09:52
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Ken Scott
 
Join Date: Feb 2002
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Len Deighton's 'Bomber' was done as a Radio play, a good effort but not a patch on the book. The play tried too hard to separate the 'toff officers' from the 'salt of the earth' NCO aircrew, & to introduce a post war guilt appraisal of the bombing effort through FS Lambert's questioning of targeting.

Not strictly a flying film, but flying related - David Niven in 'A Matter of Life & Death'. Same chap, with Errol Flynn, in the superb 'Dawn Patrol'. What about the 'Battle of Britain'? Great flying sequences, tremendous score (music, not how many we shot down in the film!), the greatest collection of WW2 aircraft for any post war film (at the time it amounted to the sixteenth largest air force in the world I believe!) & not a bit of CGI. Saw it at the cinema in 1970, wanted to fly from that moment on! 'The Sound Barrier' saw us going supersonic before the Yanks, or so many of the viewing public over there believed, & we did it by 'reversing the controls'! - classic. I enjoyed 'Memphis Belle' too, for once a story correctly populated by an all American cast. '633 Squadron' just for all those Mosquitos, likewise 'Mosquito Squadron', although both lost it on the ground. Enjoyed 'The Blue Max' too.

On the bad side, any of the 'Airport' series, especially 'Concorde' - seeing off the F4 by barrel rolling whilst firing a flare gun out of the open DV window to decoy the missiles! Hope no one in MOD sees that & develops a 'new' DAS suite for us! I never watched 'Pearl Harbour', put off by the trailers & the reviews so can't really judge that one. I enjoyed 'Top Gun' when it came out by it's way too corny & just too gay with hindsight.
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