Warbird Information Exchange

Just watch it for the first time in 40 years. Great movie, was wondering how real the B52 shots were i mean all the procedures they did on bomb run. Any 52 people out there.

I watch it regularly. A great cold war movie! The only way to make a movie like that was to make it a comedy.


I recently read the B-52 instrument panels were all fabricated at the movie studio. So what you see isn't what was really on the B-52. I recently talked to a B-52 crew man and he said there are more dials and switches in a real B-52 then what they had for the movie!


I LOVE the bomb run sequence! Here it is. And remember, switch to primary safety!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSbPqin3L6E

P.S. The bombardier is played by Sam Earl Jones.
and of coarse Major Kong played by the one and only Slim Pickens!

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I've got a version on DVD that includes a "making of" documentary. The producers couldn't get pictures of the inside of a real BUFF, as it was still new and classified tech. They ended up building an interior using their best guess, but it was apparently close enough that they got a call from the Pentagon with a few questions...

SN

No, I'm pretty sure it was James L. Jackson.

Sorta like the effects guys for "Never Say Never Again" - they got stopped by Customs with blueprints for a B-1B Lancer and an AGM-86 cruise missile, and had to do quite a bit of fast talking to convince the officers that they were just making a movie.

"I have had enough of these !#+&$! bombs on this $@&#! plane!!"

"I have had enough of these !#+&$! bombs on this $@&#! plane!!"

I alwauys considered the B-52 onboard scenes & procedures very well done, so I was surprised to hear that a lot of it was guesswork. Makes it all the more impressive.

Does anyone recall a similar movie released just before Dr Strangelove called 'Failsafe'? (I think).

I haven't seen it in years but seem to remember it was based around B-58s.

I believe "Failsafe" starred Henry Fonda as the POTUS, and a young pre-"Genie" Larry Hagman as his translator. It's probably been three decades since I saw it, but I seem to recall the footage of the B-58s was shown in negative for some reason.

That movie was a straight-up drama, rather than a satire/black comedy like "Dr. Strangelove." Another interesting fact: Major Kong the B-52 pilot is arguably the film's most memorable character, in no small part because of the performance of Slim Pickens. But the role was originally suppposed to be played by Peter Sellers (who played three others in the film) but he injured his ankle during rehearsals in the BUFF bomb bay set, and Pickens was brought in as a last-minute substitute. I believe the bombardier was James Earl Jones' first film role.

SN

I believe the set designer of Dr. Strangelove had a newspaper photo of a B-52 instrument panel (and possibly the Monogram B-52 kit?) to go from, but that was it. Fail Safe was in the same position with a smaller budget (so no miniatures), and they were supposedly stonewalled on every effort to get bomber film; they eventually scrounged up about 800 feet of mostly B-58 stock footage. Some of it was printed as negative to pass for night shots.
Movie stills:




Positives:



Fail-Safe's bomber interior shots were supposedly filmed in the cockpit of an actual airplane (what type I don't know) in a hangar in Long Island.

Ironically, another movie was being shot in a converted hangar in Long Island about the same time, and had no trouble getting a lot of military stock footage... It was titled Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

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All right, Mister Dorfmann, start pullin'!
Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)

Much is made over the claim the set designer couldn't get access to a B52 panel. [u]I call BS on that. [/u]
Especially on the UK fanboys on the other forum who always say on this topic how stupid the USAF was I not giving the producers a real B-52 to use and how bright the UK production team was in getting it to look right.
By 1960 the B-52 pnel was routinely shown in unclassified films.
Anyone seen Bombers B-52 or the Steve Canyon TV series lately? Both had shots of B-52s.

And if worse came to worse, use a 707 panel as a starting point.

And while I don't have specific examples, I'd be shocked if parts of the interior B52 flight deck except for the Navigator & Radar Nav panel (btw: they had to be shot "dark" when I was in the service as late as 2000) appeared in various pubs.

IF Fail Safe didn't get stock footage, it's their own fault, every cheesy B science fiction film of the 50s had plenty of shots.

I think it' just much better story to make the DoD out to be the bad guys. And since Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe were anti-military films, such stories were encourage by their producers.

BTW: The Monogram B-52 model (I assume you mean the 1/72 one with the flight deck) wasn't released when the film was made. That kit was no produced until the late 60s.

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