Memphis Belle, B-17 Flying Fortress Bomber, Classic Films DVD

The Memphis Belle, Flying Fortress, B-17 Bomber Films, DVD!

An original production published by The Classic Archives!

This film is a war documentary produced by one of the "Hollywood Colonels," William Wyler, who joined the Air Force Film unit and recorded the sights and sounds of the last mission of a B-17 bomber known as the Memphis Belle, named after the girlfriend of the pilot. A narrator told the story of the 10 crewmen as examples of simple average American boys doing a tough job. The men and plane were filmed during the bombing raid on the submarine plens in Wilhelmshafen, Germany, "just one mission of just one plane and one crew in one squadron in one group of one wing of one Air Force out of fifteen United States Army Air Forces."   It used handheld 16mm and 35mm cameras inside the plane to give the perspective of the crew.  Wyler in fact combined footage from several missions to represent this last 25th mission of the plane, a mission that was actually a milk run with no casualties and no difficult landing.  He also used film shot by the 8th AAF Combat Camera Unit.  Wyler wanted to film a flak burst but never was able to get one:   "I could never get one explosion because how the hell do you know where one's going to explode? Once the cloud is there it's too late. All that flak so close to us, and I could never get the explosion."   From October 1943 to March 1944, Wyler edited in the U.S. the 20,000 feet of film he shot in Europe, producing a 42-minute color film that was considered beautiful and dramatic.

The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress is a 1944 documentary film which ostensibly provides an account of the final mission of the Memphis Belle, a B-17 Flying Fortress. In May 1943 it became the first U.S. Army Air Forces heavy bomber to complete 25 missions over Europe and return to the United States.

The dramatic 16 mm color film of actual battles was made by cinematographer First Lieutenant Harold J. Tannenbaum. The film was directed by Major William Wyler, narrated by Eugene Kern, and had scenes at its Bassingbourn base photographed by Hollywood cinematographer Captain William H. Clothier. It was made under the auspices of the First Motion Picture Unit, a branch of the United States Army Air Forces (to which future US President Ronald Reagan also belonged). The film actually depicted the next to last mission of the crew (see below) on May 15, 1943, and was made as a morale-building inspiration for the Home Front by showing the everyday courage of the men who manned these planes.

Sound, Color, 33:13

1) Armed Forces Day at AFB in Michigan features new Redstone missile; Scorpion attack plane fires rockets at old B-17 in Florida; crash landing of jet on USS Essex, pilot rescued by helicopter (2) "France Digs In for Total Algerian War" - 400,000 French troops pinned down by guerilla attacks - armed depots dot Algeria landscape (3) 4 surviving Dionne quints open flower shop in Ottawa (4) hospital workers carry small pagers (5) Preakness horse race won by Fabius, not Needles who had won Kentucky Derby; Nashua wins his race (complete newsreel)

Sound, B&W, 6:37

Chronicles one of the early (autumn 1942) bombing runs of B-17s over Europe.

Sound, B&W, 10:42

B-24 Liberator rolls off San Diego Consolidated "San Diego, CA: Off the assembly line comes the 5,000th B-24 to go to war. The famed bomber, nicknamed the Liberator, is ready to be off to the wars and further victories for the plane." (2) First Movies Of Gen. Tito Of Yugoslavia "Somewhere in Yugoslavia: For the first time, Marshall Tito is photographed by the motion picture camera. His Partisans have been a thorn in the Nazis' side since the day the Germans over ran the country."

Sound, B&W, 1:05

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