Memphis Belle

Seeing movies about World War II we are always informed that the glamour service was the Air Corps. A bit of a carryover I suspect from World War I when you had those small biplanes with individual pilots acting like knights of old. That was not the mission of the Air Corps in World War II.

In fact people in the Air Corps were the first to see combat in both Europe and the Pacific. Before the invasion of North Africa the only blows against the Axis were struck by the people in the skies. The Americans and British had differing ideas about what to do which is discussed somewhat in Memphis Belle and also in other air films like Twelve O'Clock High for instance. The British believed in night bombing, fly high avoid the anti-aircraft, drop your load and let it do whatever damage it did wherever it landed. The Americans believed in what you see here, daylight bombing to try and limit damage to specific military targets. Casualties were greater that way.

So when a B-17 like the Memphis Belle completes its run of 25 missions with the same crew it is a miracle of chance that Captain Matthew Modine and his crew have gone through with the same bunch for 25. After that the tour of duty is up.

An eager Army Air Corps publicity guy John Lithgow wants to get them all on a war bond tour when that 25th mission is in the books. But the commander David Strathairn is just treating them like any of the rest of his crews. Not for the least reason that these guys have enough psychological pressure.

The crew is a cross section of Americana, white Americana to be sure as the armed forces were segregated at the time. Standing out in the performances are Eric Stoltz and Billy Zane and Harry Connick, Jr. To say that last mission was a rough one is putting it mildly.

The battle scenes are well staged, especially inside the plane which was one small contained area. I had never seen it portrayed so well before in a film about the war in the skies. Howard Hughes would have been proud of the staging.

This fine film is dedicated to those who fought in the skies in the 2nd World War. I could do no less with this review.