Warbird Information Exchange

The problem is that most people never heard of Dick Bong, have seen too many Pearl Harbor movies, don't care about the Flying Tigers (if they ever heard of them).

In addition, "iron" and flying scenes do not make a movie successful. You have to have a story, and the story can't be about iron. Look at what happened to Pearl Harbor and the latest: "Flyboys". That's what you get if you don't get a story that appeals to a wide audience.

Aviator appealed because the story was about more than airplanes.

WE like the iron and know the names and the stories. But those stories will not appeal to the wider audience, or, even worse, to make them appeal they will distort tham to the point of exasperation.

They'd have to alter the control sticks on the jets so that the gang-bangers held them sideways while pressing the trigger buttons

"Yo...I'z iz gonna bust a side-winder in yo azz...beehotch!"

John

John;
Now that's funny!
Jerry

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"Always remember that, when you enter the ocean or the forest, you are no longer at the top of the food chain."

The jet's undercarriage would have to be motified so that it bounces up and down while waiting to taxi on the runway. The jets would also have to be "pimped-out" with gold accents and lots of "blinge$$$"...much to the dismay of the ground crew.

John

Dik Shepard has expressed an opinion about Vietnam, and since this is one of the most important political and military event in years I'd like to answer, without the profanity. Now over half a century since we got involved and polls have shown that despite all the proaganda from our govt. the U S public believes, by a margin of about 80/20 that the war was wrong. A few points: Dik says the war was lost not by our military, but by politicians. 1st in our democracy the poiticians should reflect and respect the public. That is the representative part of our govt. It can be surmise by polls or reflected in elections. No way are we supposed to elect a president or others who lie to or manipulate or ignore citizens. LBJ, without any demand by our people, esculated the war based on the lie of the Tonkin Gulf. The similarity to our current war is not only was the justification a lie, but like Bush, LBJ & Nixon were willing to send hiundreds of thousands of young people into combat, that themselves never had the courage to face. We lost 55,000 dead, 200,000 wounded, and killed perhaps 2 million Vietnamese, many of them children. We lost the respect of other civilized nations, and wrecked our economy. Because the war was wrong, some have gone too far in blaming our vets. The murder of women and children at My Lai comes from the climate created by leaders until young soldiers snap. The barbarity of our govt. is that this mostly went unpunished, as did the murder of unarmed students at Kent & Jackson. When the American people turned against the war, our govt. first turned on the people, but was finally forced to end our war. I think we are seeing that process again. I don't know about SEATO, but other civilized nations did not attack Nam. As for the Kennedys, two of that family were genuine heroes in WWII. As a Father of 2 sons of military age, I can't imagine much worse than to have one of them taken part in cold blooded murder of infants like at My Lai. Wars in general have great suffering,such as our POWs there. I wonder what Dik finds so great about this one.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

In all seriousness, and if anyone's remotely interested, I did start working on a story based on the exploits of the Eagle Squadrons, with a view to turning it into a screenplay.

So far I've written maybe a chapter of the story itself, but wasn't satisfied with it, so went back and started again!! I haven't done a lot of work on it for a while mainly because of the worries of having to find gainful employment in the near future!

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Cheers

Daren

Len Deighton's "Goodbye Mickey Mouse" would be an excellent movie about the really crucial Battle for Germany in the Feb-June 1944 timeframe...

Another idea might be a spin off of "The Young Lions" (Marlon Brando/Dean Martin) except from fighter pilot perspective - in which the Luftwaffe 'hero' would be someone like Bar or Priller or Hahn or Hackl (survivors) and USAAF someone like Blakeslee or Duncan or Schilling who entered ETO when the Luftwaffe had the upper hand - and develop until the end of the war to show the change from the "good times' of the Luftwaffe - dark times of 8th AF - to the end of the war when the tide was reversed.

I like Blakeslee in this role because of the Eagle Squadron start when we didn't have the 8th AF and grew in command as a brilliant leader against the best the Luftwaffe had to offer.

Maybe they could have "Pappy's Lambs" flying the planes and Jeb the whinny, longhaired 12 year old has CO?

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Don't touch my junk!!

Unfortunately WWII in today's movie going public's view is a non-relative subject. If it doesn't contain all the "new" values like hip-hop, gay relationships, perverted story lines so it doesn't have any appeal. Case in point, "Flags Of Our Fathers" has fell in to relative obscurity only a week or so after it's debut.

Most of the potential movie adiuence that would support these types of movies either can't hear, can't see, can't stay up past 8:00 P.M., and can't stay out of the bathroom. (the last problem is mine)

It's most unfortunate that it has come to this but even my youngest daughter who is 27 now was never taught anything of substence about WWII, just a cursory chapter or so highlighting the beginning and the end. Don't even ask about WWI.

The old story that we've all joked about that our parents, and even some of us, used to tell about how they had to walk through four miles of snow carrying our books and shoes because they hurt their feet to attend school is no longer relative. The idea of a home without television and air conditioning is un-realistic in the minds of todays public, even a lot of forty year olds. So there goes the WWII period.

I have no clue what it's going to take for Hollywood to produce a movie about this era that will be supported by the general movie going public.

I would also recommend Len Deighton's Bomber for the big screen, an
excellent fictional account of Bomber Command crews on Lancs. The story would be fresh so Hollywood probably wouldn't be interested...

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Remembering those that served in Bomber Command!

www.bombercrew.com

I missed this thread the first time through but as I was reading it, I thought immediately of this book. I first read "Grey Eagles" probably 20 years ago and thought then that it would make a cool movie. The P-51 that gets jumped at Chino was a CAF bird and the F-5 that was shot down was based at Williams AFB in Arizona.

Just the kind of thing that really stoked my imagination as a young pup.

Dave G.

A point of interest on the Polesti Raid. One of my high school teachers in Houston was named Cunningham and had been on that raid. I don't know his crew position, I can't recall how we knew about his participation, he was a nasty guy, seemed to hate kids, and he never talked about his part in the war even though he taught history. It's not aviation, but another teacher had an unusual protruding jaw sort of a Jay Leno type. I later read the book "THE LONGEST DAY" about the Normandy invasion that was made into the movie. There is a passage about a corporal? Arthur E. Goddard who had been hit in the jaw by an German 88 tank shell and would probably not survive. He did survive with a rebuit steel jaw and was my junior high principal. George W. Bush was one of the younger students at that school.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

Erm, ow?

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Cheers

Daren

Grey eagles??
C'mon, even for a Messerchmitt fan that book was sooooo lame
Just dribble

Maybe lame, but given the right funding/studio/director, would be a great bit of "popcorn entertainment", the sort of thing where you can unplug your brain, sit back and enjoy....

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Cheers

Daren