treadigraph Re20292 Thank you

And those modified aircraft were actually flown of a US carrier as well for the filming.....
And they flew the film formation in on the same route in as they actually did on Dec 7th.

And if I recall correctly, the two P-40's depicting those flown by George Welsh and KenTaylor taking off from Haleiwa airstrip was actually filming at Haleiwa airstrip.

I think Tora, Tora, Tora was one of those rare well executed Hollywood war movies....and certainly up there with the best.

With regards to the Pearl Harbor movie the scenes on the aircraft carrier were actually filmed aboard a real WW2 carrier - the USS Lexington which is a floating museum in Corpus Christi TX. Its well worth a visit if you are passing.

I've not seen it but would be interesting to compare with the 2001 Czech film "A Dark Blue World".

Kenneth Moore wasn't in anything, the actor's name was Kenneth More!

Mi culpa :O

Is Tora! Tora! Tora! the movie where they turned the film around because the Japaneses carriers had the island on the other side of the deck (relative to the US carrier they used for filming)? Or am I confusing it with another WWII move?

It was the USS Yorktown,not the Lexington, that was used for the real flying scenes,depicting the Japanese carrier `Akagi`. However the real Akagi `s `island was on the port side,but `Yorktown`s is to starboard...so unless YT could steam astern,at about 15-20 kts, and t/offs were from bow to stern,it would not be a true representation of the `Akagi`. It may have worked but I would bet the USN would have vetoed it...
None of the pilots were credited with the dawn t/o, where a cough/splutter from Mr Pratt or Whitney may have led to a dunking ,or a trampling from 30000tons would have spoiled your whole day...That was a real `one shot `take`......

I was living in Waipahu, Hawaii just down the road from Barbers Point when they were filming the movie. I used to see a lot of interesting formations overhead and went over to see the planes on the ground.

Just going back to basic impressions, Tora Tora Tora was light years in front of Pearl Harbour!

TTT at least tried to stick with the truth, using whatever hardware that was available to them at the time. In contrast, Pearl Harbour was a complete fantasy of the truth! making use of ships that were decades out of date, and fabricating a story line that was pure fantasy!

Pearl Harbour as a film purporting to represent fact was a film, so low brow, as to be completely impossible as a true representation of the truth In truth,! A simply dreadful film!

TF

Couldn't agree with you more. TTT was perhaps the most historically accurate WWII movie that I've watched. After I saw the trailers and clips of Pearl Harbour I decided it wasn't worth watching.

What is unfortunate though is that a number of other films were actually historically accurate, but pulled seemingly unrelated real events from a number of real occurences to weave into a movie that the paying audience would go to. That shouldn't take away from the events that happened. For example, the 1943 movie Air Force has a scene at Clark Field where the crew chief of the B-17 Mary Ann learns that his son was killed without ever getting into the air due to the preceding fighter on take-off hitting a loaded B-17 waiting to go. That event was real. The fighter taking off after that was piloted by my high school math teacher who had to take-off through that flaming wreckage. Those details are well described in action reports now in the National Archives. I hate to see individual events of heroism minimized which is precisely what I felt Pearl Harbour did in order to pacify a gloating public and over-paid 'actors'.

My sister gave me a DVD of the movie 'Pearl Harbor' as a Christmas present when it first came out. Watched it once and determined it was so ludicrous that it's never even been out of it's holder since.

While technically not a movie, "Band of Brothers" is outstanding and reasonably faithful to the true story (it certainly helped that several survivors of Easy Company were interviewed by Ambrose when he wrote the book on which the mini-series was based, and were consultants during filming).
As for real events incorporated into a movie, if perhaps somewhat out of context, I had an old college buddy who shared my historical interest in WWII - in large part because his father had also seen action in WWII. Mine had served in the Pacific, his in Europe. Shortly after "Saving Private Ryan" came out we sat around and discussed the movie - with a lot of focus on what they got right and what they got wrong (I still think the Omaha beach landing is some of the most dramatic war video ever filmed). Anyway, we both scoffed at the scene where a glider had crashed because they'd added a ton of armor to protect the general who was going to be on-board - but didn't bother to tell the pilot about it. Simply too unbelievable they'd do something that stupid. Found out later that it really happened - and it was during the D-day landings :ugh:

It's right up there with U571, The Imitation Game and Battle of the Bulge, but Midway isn't too bad and Band of Brothers is very good (especially the DVD version which has an extra disk of interviews with the surviving members of Easy Company). I think Pacific (made by the same producers as Band of Brothers) is pretty good as well, but it's based on an attempted merging of three separate books about people who never met rather than a single "family" like Easy Company, which makes the story a bit fragmented.

PDR

I for one think the Tora fleet of "Japanese" aircraft was an amazing achievement. To those upset about "obvious Harvards", what would you have done in the late 1960s to create that number of aircraft? I dread showing anyone who isn't a military/aircraft nerd the movie because of the way it's made and its pacing but I love it.

No one will "let them do" what you've said. It's ridiculous to keep harping on about an Americanised Dam Busters with B-17s when we know they've built a squadron of static Lancasters and one each Wellington and Mosquito for the production. It seems you can't mention the project on a forum or on social media without someone bringing up B-17s and Tom Cruise!!!

Not to mention the model B-17 "crashing" in some original cuts of "The Dam Busters" .

I agree the longest day is more accurate, histrorically and better, but when I saw 'Saving Private Ryan', I met a Frenchman the day after he had seen the film, who was very much moved by it. I had breakfast with him and he said he could have so easliy have been that little boy.

I much prefer historical accuracy, but where do you stop to capture the emotional accuracy?

Don't forget the dog.

Heavily modified? Strewth it reads like a new machine how ever did they get the thing certified

Don't forget the Battle of Britain (1967) 35th largest airforce in the world at the time.