"The War Lover" BBC2 Wed 12 August 12.00
 

The War Lover.


BBC 2 12.00 This Wednesday 12 August.
With Steve McQueen, Shirley Ann Field etc.


Good WW2 movie with outstanding B.17 low-flying sequences filmed at Bovingdon (after I'd left Bovingdon - more's the pity!).


YouTube of Bovingdon sequence here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGGynxYbA48

Sometime in 1961, on my way home from school in Chesham, I heard a sound similar to the familiar Dakotas based at Bovingdon but a bit 'heavier'.
Looking through a gap in the trees, I saw the underside of a 4 engined aircraft which a friend walking with me asked what it was. I replied 'if I didn't know better, I'd say it was a B17 Flying Fortress'.
As we all know now, it was a B17 (one of 3 based at Bovingdon to film 'The War Lover') and they were frequent sights in the sky for the next few months.
I was still too young to join the local ATC Squadron then, but the next film to be made at Bovingdon (633 Squadron) I was a cadet and visited once or twice during filming, the only problem we encountered being to figure out who was an actor/extra and who was a real RAF Officer whom we had to salute!!
Splendid shots of the low flying sequences in an area where 4 engined aircraft were not even supposed to taxy!
A few years later (late 1966 I think), on a 613 GS detachment from Halton, I landed a Sedburgh glider through that gap between the control tower and the hangars and believe me, it felt narrow even in that!

A good book if you can find a copy is "Everything But The Flak" by Martin Caidin which recounts how John Crewdson and Greg Board acquired the B-17s and got them to the UK for the film.

Yep, Chevvron. Had much the same experience. Riding my m/cycle back from Police Training College at Eynsham Hall [rows of silver B47s at Brize, dragging their braking 'chutes on finals to my right!!!], looked to my left, and saw my first ever B.17. There for the film of course. The only film Steve McQueen ever made in England.

Well I watched it. As you said some good flying sequences. Steve McQueen seemed to specialise in playing total creeps - I wonder if he was one in real life. Interesting seeing Michael Crawford playing the young air gunner, and Bernard Braden as the doctor. I also saw Burt Kwouk at the pre flight briefing but he didnt get a credit at the end. Usual lazy train continuity mistake, the loco changed its class and number somewhere between Cambridge and London! Still at least the B17 didnt change to a B24 in mid-flight!

3/10 - and that was for the flying sequences!

By many accounts he was.....especially with women, but given his early life experiences, probably not surprising.

B17s were no strangers to Bovingdon either; during WW2, it was a 'Combat Crew Replacement Center' with - you guessed it - B17s.
It's also been suggested Glenn Miller actually departed from there on his last flight, the aircraft having positioned from Twinwoods, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence to support this.