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Post by Col7777 on Apr 10, 2009 3:57:15 GMT -5
I watched a movie on TV the other night 'Bombers B-52' starring Karl Malden and Natalie Wood. There was a great scene where it was being mid-air fuelled by a Strato tanker.
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Post by Tom/CalClassic on Apr 10, 2009 9:54:38 GMT -5
I don't know if I've ever seen that movie - I will have to watch for it. I have seen Dr. Strangelove, of course.
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Post by ashaman on Apr 10, 2009 11:51:04 GMT -5
I think I remember the movie about the B52 ( not Dr Strangelove, though I've see that too) Col7777 writes about. Pardon me if I say this, that movie, together with the first Airport movie ( the one with Dean Martin), looked more like a very long and very expensive Boeing commercial TV spot than a movie. ;D
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Post by Tom/CalClassic on Apr 10, 2009 12:53:44 GMT -5
As did Strategic Air Command (B-36's and B-47's).
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Post by ashaman on Apr 10, 2009 18:08:28 GMT -5
Strategic Air Command, you say? Never seen it. Anyway, if the the Stratojet was indeed Boeing, wasn't the Peacemaker a Convair? Both of them had 6 engines by the way ( the B-36 was born with 6 at least, the 4 wingtip-mounted booster turbojets were a later design). Strange similarity between two else completely different planes. Have to find this movie and see it.
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Post by Tom/CalClassic on Apr 10, 2009 18:37:10 GMT -5
Yes, a must see. Jimmy Stewart stars as a baseball player in the Air Force Reserves, called back to duty. His first assignment is Convair B-36's - lots of nice aerial shots of the plane in flight, with stirring music to boot. He then transitions to B-47's, but the stress finally gets to him and it's back to baseball. June Allison stars as his suffering wife through the "ordeal". What I meant, it was as much a "sales job" (in this case for Convair, Boeing, and SAC) as was the B-52 movie for Boeing.
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Post by Wolfgang on Apr 10, 2009 18:44:26 GMT -5
Hi, B52, with Natalie Wood and Karl Malden. There are some very nice scenes. The other two mentioned films are an "must" I also remember an "fighter" film with John Wayne, in which he plays an faked defector. ;D Then you know my avatar Best Regards Wolfgang
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Post by ashaman on Apr 10, 2009 21:51:06 GMT -5
;D Then you know my avatar No offense, your avatar doesn't show. I only see an empty box.
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Post by Tom/CalClassic on Apr 11, 2009 11:53:14 GMT -5
It's not showing for me either right now, although I've seen it before. Yes, I know it (and the exclamation below it) very well. The John Wayne movie is Jet Pilot: www.imdb.com/title/tt0050562/He plays a USAF pilot assigned to a Russian defector (Janet Leigh). He doesn't pretend to be a defector, as I remember. His job is to get information on how her plane flies, etc., but she has plans of her own... Hope this helps,
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Post by Wolfgang on Apr 11, 2009 16:07:19 GMT -5
Yep, first she is an defector and after the half of the film he went to Russia with her. The Russians want information about the US parasite fighter program which was abandoned at that time. But the Russians didn't know that. Wolfgang PS: from time to time my Avatar didn't show up. I think the host server has often problems
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Moses03
DC-6B
Propoholic
Posts: 169
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Post by Moses03 on Apr 11, 2009 16:59:16 GMT -5
I have Bombers B-52 on VHS. Some nice footage indeed!
Moses
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Post by johnfromoz on Apr 11, 2009 19:24:37 GMT -5
Have to say "A Gathering of Eagles" with Rock Hudson and Aussie Rod Taylor, is a favourite. About a B52 unit trying to pass stringent surprise readiness tests, and you see plenty, plus the odd sinister ICBMs. I always like Jimmy Stewart though - and I accept that in the period a lot of movies were "promotional", I guess even that is atmospheric.
Two other golden oldies by John Wayne - "The High and the Mighty" and "Island in the Sky" - are among my collection.
The first is truly nostalgic - check out the casual "airport security" in Hawaii, and the USCG B17! I've had friends say it is just another airliner disaster movie, but that's not so - it's the original airliner disaster movie. Just seeing the period airports and aircraft is payback enough. You probably know you can get a paint of the aircraft from the movie for FS9.
The second is a simple lost aircraft and the ensuing SAR. Like the Duke - what you see is what you get.
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Post by ashaman on Apr 11, 2009 21:16:38 GMT -5
...and I accept that in the period a lot of movies were "promotional", I guess even that is atmospheric... Well, seen the historical moment, that is understandable. Maybe you can find yourself not agreeing, but you can understand in an intellectual way. What is, allow me please, a little less understandable is movies like the already named first " Airport". It had been something like 20 years I had not seen it, and the last time I did I was a teenager... then one of our never cursed enough ( but not for that movie. For reasons that have no relation to aviation) TV networks sent it on air again. In the end it was the miserable death of a myth for me. Memory ( and my less polemical and criticism-inclined mind of the times) had sweetened a lot of pure unadulterated crap rough edges and debatable decisions made in that movie. ;D If the story in itself does not start bad, from the start of the second part of the movie to the end is almost a constant shameless hymn to the supposed good qualities of the 707... and it's quite strange when one thinks that in those years the 747 had inherited the throne as Boeing's flagship plane already ( and the 707's career, having being denied a re-engining with high bypass CFM turbofan to push the 757 and 767 instead, would come to a stop at the end of the decade, ). Can't really say I understand the people in Boeing of the times to blow all the money necessary to ( not so) secretly sponsor that movie, nor is that important I do. PS I remain convinced though that the best aviation movie is the first " Airplane" ( only the first though). ;D It may be stupid, nonsensical and comedy-inclined, but when you see other aviation movies that manage to do the very same, but while trying to give themselves a veneer of supposed truth instead... then is when you understand that " Airplane" is the REAL thing. ...and maybe " Soul Plane" too, a little. ;D
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Post by johnl on Apr 12, 2009 16:39:27 GMT -5
I've never seen "Bombers B-52",but it's on my "want list". Apart form the Stratojet and the gorgeous Peacemaker, doesn't "Strategic Air Command" feature a cameo C-47 emergency landing? Jo gave me "The High and the Mighty" and "Island inthe Sky" DVDs for Christmas. I'd seen the former on release (and could still whistle the tune), but had never seen the latter - it's excellent, with very strong performances from Ernest Borgnine and James Arness. A couple of British air movies worth chasing down are "The Night My Number Came Up" (late 40s) in which a nightmare seems to be coming true on an RAF Transport Command Dakota flight, and "Out of the Clouds" (1955), with stories about passengers and crew of several flights passing through Heathrow. Some nice Stratocruiser bits, with James Roberston Justice appearing as an archetypal BOAC "Atlantic Baron".
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Post by Wolfgang on Apr 12, 2009 16:48:52 GMT -5
Hi,
I also remember a nice Brit film from the 50's or 60's. Somewhere in southeast Asia ( perhaps Burma ) with a flight in a DH Mosquito. Two pilots and one "passenger" in the empty bomb bay. But I can't remember the details... too long ago, that I have seen this film.
Wolfgang
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