Flying Films
Join Date: Aug 2000
Location: Australia
Posts: 17
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
If you want a flying movie that's possibly still relevant to the military today.........Catch 22
And you can't go past Michael Caine's classic line out of The Battle of Britain.
"How much longer OPS.....the engine's overheating and so am I....we either stand down or blow up, which do you want???
And you can't go past Michael Caine's classic line out of The Battle of Britain.
"How much longer OPS.....the engine's overheating and so am I....we either stand down or blow up, which do you want???
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: UK
Posts: 3
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
How about Dive Bomber - yet more Errol Flynn, this time with Fred MacMurray. Glorious Technicolor, made/released 1940/41 prior to American entry into WW2. More Devestators etc than you can shake a stick at and backdrop of San Diego (North Island).
Plot's a bit pants though (Flynn is hunky aeromed researching hypoxia and g-loc; actually that reads better than it's acted).
Look out for plucky medical failure pilot who joins RAF to fly the latest fighter - a camo PT-22
Plot's a bit pants though (Flynn is hunky aeromed researching hypoxia and g-loc; actually that reads better than it's acted).
Look out for plucky medical failure pilot who joins RAF to fly the latest fighter - a camo PT-22
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: UK
Posts: 1
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
"Always" my fave, Richard Dreyfuss fighting fires while dead. I think it is a remake of a 1940's film 'A Guy Named Joe' - anyone seen that?
And (prepares for flames) I'm sorry but 'Top Gun' is a great movie. A $30M aircraft with the worlds best air search radar and million dollar radar guided air to air missile - six inches behind the enemy and they still can't get a lock on!!! Better switch to guns! I loved it.
And (prepares for flames) I'm sorry but 'Top Gun' is a great movie. A $30M aircraft with the worlds best air search radar and million dollar radar guided air to air missile - six inches behind the enemy and they still can't get a lock on!!! Better switch to guns! I loved it.
'Always' is memorable for 3 scenes:
1. The opening shot of the Catalina taken with a very long lens.
2. When the trainees drop fire retardant mud all over.....oh bo££ocks, what's his name - the fat guy.
3. When the lovely Holly Hunter comes downstairs in that white dress......aaargh - almost in the Susannah-in-suspenders league!
1. The opening shot of the Catalina taken with a very long lens.
2. When the trainees drop fire retardant mud all over.....oh bo££ocks, what's his name - the fat guy.
3. When the lovely Holly Hunter comes downstairs in that white dress......aaargh - almost in the Susannah-in-suspenders league!
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Royal Berkshire
Posts: 19
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Saw a really bad one the other day - Can't remember name but starred George Peppard, George Permatan and Maximillian Schell about a group of students in Paris who agree to meet at the same cafe at end of war. Flying bit had RAF in Merlin engined 109's and models of Luftwaffe in flying sequence were 'crossed' Spitfires - historical detail?
Also the film that was the inspiration for Airplane! was so bad that it was almost funnier than Airplane! itself. Again can't remember name so any clues out there.
'I've a question for you'
'What is it'
'An interogative statement but thats not important right now'
Also the film that was the inspiration for Airplane! was so bad that it was almost funnier than Airplane! itself. Again can't remember name so any clues out there.
'I've a question for you'
'What is it'
'An interogative statement but thats not important right now'
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: A PC!
Posts: 594
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Limited Traffic Information - you are thinking of the "Airport" series, the original based on a novel by some american bloke whose name escapes me until I hit the "submit reply" button.
There were "Airport", "Airport 77", "Airport 80 - The Concorde" and probably some others that were too bad to register on the consciousness.
"Airport 80" was in fact a good deal funnier than "Airplane" - I just love the bit where the Captain sticks his hand out of the DV window in flight to fire a flare which decoys a Sparrow fired from an F4 owned by some long forgotten bad guy. Classic! looping the passnger carrying Vulcan Mk3 with 100 POB was great, too.
Good flims: "Battle of Britain" is priceless - not just for Susannah York in webbing and "Aces High" should rate a mention too.
Aces High contains a great line from David Wood (who was a regular on Play Away, with Brian Cant and Jeremy Irons): To very junior pilot in a french brothel "despite what Mummy said to you, it was not made for pissing through". I was 9 when I saw the film first time - that line stuck!!!!
There were "Airport", "Airport 77", "Airport 80 - The Concorde" and probably some others that were too bad to register on the consciousness.
"Airport 80" was in fact a good deal funnier than "Airplane" - I just love the bit where the Captain sticks his hand out of the DV window in flight to fire a flare which decoys a Sparrow fired from an F4 owned by some long forgotten bad guy. Classic! looping the passnger carrying Vulcan Mk3 with 100 POB was great, too.
Good flims: "Battle of Britain" is priceless - not just for Susannah York in webbing and "Aces High" should rate a mention too.
Aces High contains a great line from David Wood (who was a regular on Play Away, with Brian Cant and Jeremy Irons): To very junior pilot in a french brothel "despite what Mummy said to you, it was not made for pissing through". I was 9 when I saw the film first time - that line stuck!!!!
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Royal Berkshire
Posts: 19
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
moggie
Sorry but Airplane is not based on Airport XX. The film it was based on has exactly the same plot lines but without the (intentional) humour and is an old black & white. Can't think of the name but will have a scan through the web to see if I can find it.
Sorry but Airplane is not based on Airport XX. The film it was based on has exactly the same plot lines but without the (intentional) humour and is an old black & white. Can't think of the name but will have a scan through the web to see if I can find it.
I believe the film you are thinking of was titled "Flight into Danger" and was based on the book of the same name - which I remember reading at school in about 1964. Both pilots ate the fish, both got sick, some other mate has to land the ac, etc, etc. From which I deduced that pilots only eat things which smell of fish if they're not actually fish!!
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Glorious Devon
Posts: 721
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Agree "Dawn Patrol" was the all-time great. Shot with surplus WW1 aeroplanes flown by unemployed ex-WW1 pilots - of whom they (Howard Hughes?) killed more than one, I believe. As a boy I was thrilled by "The First of the Few" - the Spitfire story with some superb sequences flown by Geoffry Quill, I believe. At Middleton St George "Sound Barrier", featuring the Swift prototype, was a cult film, mainly through morbid interest amongst the stus in what it looked like after you augured in vertically after "losing it". I think they detonated a 1,000lb charge and scattered bits of aluminium around the crater. At that time we were issued with bone domes for the first time and one of the stus with a particularly black sense of humour stencilled "Dig Here for Fred" on the top of his. Memphis Belle and The Fighting Lady were tops for WW2 combat photgraphy.
Guest
Posts: n/a
'Always' does it for me too, but have to take issue with Beagle - Holly Hunter did look great in the white dress, but to me she looked even better in the flying suit.
BoB, 633 Sqn, Dambusters et al had all been shown at the local cinema recently when, as a mere lad of 12 or so, I attended the closing-down ceremony for RAF Tangmere with the rest of the Sussex Air Training Corps. A lone Spit flew by, and the parade held it's breath on a large lump in the throat (cue mixed metaphors) - but anyway it was better than any of the movies.
[ 16 October 2001: Message edited by: TqNrT4NgGreenlightCWP ]
BoB, 633 Sqn, Dambusters et al had all been shown at the local cinema recently when, as a mere lad of 12 or so, I attended the closing-down ceremony for RAF Tangmere with the rest of the Sussex Air Training Corps. A lone Spit flew by, and the parade held it's breath on a large lump in the throat (cue mixed metaphors) - but anyway it was better than any of the movies.
[ 16 October 2001: Message edited by: TqNrT4NgGreenlightCWP ]
Grandpa Aerotart
Sorry guys...a civvy invading your space.
BoB Best movie ever!
Dam Busters..Yeah!
633 Squadron Yeah!
Always....now if Holly Hunter payed her cards right she could....sigh!!!
You lot(poms) made some great (war) movies just post WW2, none of the BS that America just can't seem to leave out, like the latest remake of pearl harbour!
Anyone remember a movie done at pinewood studios in the late 1940s called, I think, Hurricane Squadron? It had several actors who had actually flown hurricanes in the BoB. Starts off with a newbie ending up in the Wingco's front yard on landing. I'll have to ring my dad, (ex RAF late 40s to early 50s,French Foriegn Legion Air Wing and RAAF), he has it on tape.
Chuck.
Edited for Always
[ 17 October 2001: Message edited by: Chimbu chuckles ]
BoB Best movie ever!
Dam Busters..Yeah!
633 Squadron Yeah!
Always....now if Holly Hunter payed her cards right she could....sigh!!!
You lot(poms) made some great (war) movies just post WW2, none of the BS that America just can't seem to leave out, like the latest remake of pearl harbour!
Anyone remember a movie done at pinewood studios in the late 1940s called, I think, Hurricane Squadron? It had several actors who had actually flown hurricanes in the BoB. Starts off with a newbie ending up in the Wingco's front yard on landing. I'll have to ring my dad, (ex RAF late 40s to early 50s,French Foriegn Legion Air Wing and RAAF), he has it on tape.
Chuck.
Edited for Always
[ 17 October 2001: Message edited by: Chimbu chuckles ]
Wasn't that the movie where 'Septic' "pancakes on the 'drome" as a shot-up Hurricane lands crosswind in front of him? I think that was 'Way to the Stars' featuring Halfpenny Field (not Halfpenny Green, Bobbington, Wolverhampton, Ambridge International or whatever it's now called).
Still think that Holly looked very yummy in the first shot wearing that dress - but equally good in the rest of 'Always'.
[ 17 October 2001: Message edited by: BEagle ]
Still think that Holly looked very yummy in the first shot wearing that dress - but equally good in the rest of 'Always'.
[ 17 October 2001: Message edited by: BEagle ]
Grandpa Aerotart
Beagle yes that's the movie! The chap who play the character who was so miffed initially at the newbie for getting in his way was a Battle of Britian Hurricane vet in real life!
The badly burned sector controller who so frightened Susanah Yorke in BoB was also a real life vet of that 'tumult in the clouds' who was one of the early plastic surgery guinea pigs.
As a teenager in Sydney Paul Brickhill was a neighbour and another chap who ran a local camera and remote control model aeroplane shop was a BoB vet. Spent hours listening to them. His shop was called Red Baron something or other from his squadron nickname. While a bona fide ace himself he had also been shot down more often than he shot others from the sky, hence his sqadron mates were never quite sure who's side he was on.
Chuck.
The badly burned sector controller who so frightened Susanah Yorke in BoB was also a real life vet of that 'tumult in the clouds' who was one of the early plastic surgery guinea pigs.
As a teenager in Sydney Paul Brickhill was a neighbour and another chap who ran a local camera and remote control model aeroplane shop was a BoB vet. Spent hours listening to them. His shop was called Red Baron something or other from his squadron nickname. While a bona fide ace himself he had also been shot down more often than he shot others from the sky, hence his sqadron mates were never quite sure who's side he was on.
Chuck.
Gainesy is right - the movie with 'Septic' and Jack Hawkins playing 'The Tiger' (Groupie - or Harry-the-staish in yoofspeak) was indeed 'Angels One-Five'.
'The Way to the Stars' was about a bomber station Somewhere-in-England (Halfpenny Field) with John Mills and Michael Redgrave. Good film - but sadly no Susannah-in-suspenders or Holly-in-that-dress....!!
'The Way to the Stars' was about a bomber station Somewhere-in-England (Halfpenny Field) with John Mills and Michael Redgrave. Good film - but sadly no Susannah-in-suspenders or Holly-in-that-dress....!!
Join Date: Sep 1999
Location: The Deep South (Sussex)
Posts: 783
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Tch Tch, do none of you youngsters remember "High Flight"? It was all about Cranwell in the late 50's and how the heroes eventually progressed to a Hunter Squadron in Germany. Memorable shots included a Vampire 5 taxying out for take off, being recalled because of weather getting bad but the hero pulling out his pig-tail and getting airborne anyway...in a Vampire T11.
I went to watch it with a bunch of mates from 2FTS at Syerston. We all agreed that we had made the right choice in avoiding "The college" and joining the Service "the working class way".
I went to watch it with a bunch of mates from 2FTS at Syerston. We all agreed that we had made the right choice in avoiding "The college" and joining the Service "the working class way".