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Memphis Belle

Memphis Belle

List Price: $14.97
Your Price: $9.08
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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good with a few historical flaws
Review: This was a good acting moive. It had some historical accuracy but some hollywood mixed with it.
Historicly Accurate:
It used the old model B-17 rather than the more popular G and F models with the nose or chin turret.
The rattleing of the cabin during flight.
The noise of the guns.
Hollywood Added:
The things that happed to Memphis Belle were taken from the scenerios of 4 or 5 planes on the same mission.
Also added by hollywood was the big speach that I think ruined the movies about not killing civilians.
The names were made up.
The camera crew wasn't there.
Their last mission was not a Bremen Aircraft Factory but a Willhelmshaven U-Boat pen.
Special Effects:
The portration of flak was very realistic(compared to the 1944 documentery which was real but hard to see).
The guns were very realistic right down to the way they moved.
They way the first plane took off using mostly rudder was a very good scene.

All in all the movie was great as a B-17 movie but as a movie on a historic event it wasn't historic at all good. I encourage you to see this movie based on the historical accuracy of the plane itself, but don't use this as a history lesson.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Not quite factual.
Review: This is a good film but sadly lacking in accuracy in some parts. My principal comment relates to the ending when the Belle crash lands. I am old enough to have seen the original movie shot on 35mm film during the war. Also I have recorded it off air on video. The Belle landed safely and with minimal battle damage. Later, after meeting the King and Queen of England, the airplane and its crew returned to USA to take part in training future bomber crews.
However, I enjoyed the film and recommend it.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Memphis Belle
Review: I was disappointed in the picture quality. For a recent movie it had far too many scratches and pops in the picture. The manufacturer should have clean it up better!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Ummm... Where was the film crew?
Review: During the real 25th mission of this aircraft, she had, on her a film crew, that made the Documentary, Memphis Belle, which is one of the most amazing movies ever made... Go see that... it is only forty-five minutes, is historically accurate, and is more intense, more exciting, and real.

This movie, while visually entertaining, does not do this aircraft, or the members of the 8th Airforce justice.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good and bad
Review: In my opinion the movie was quite interesting, mostly because of the vintage airplanes shown. Anyhow, it is a pity that the director choosed to tell almost the whole story from the bomber-crews point of view, especially as there were a lot of scenes filmed from outside the plane, including cameras placed on the Me 109:s, that never made it to the finished movie. Someone wrote that they should have used P-47:s or P-38:s instead of the P-51:s that didn't exist in the era depicted in the movie, but those aircraft are all to rare to be assembled in sufficient numbers for a movie like this. You have to take what you can get! It shall also be remembered that one of the five B-17:s assembled for the movie, the French F-BEEA, made the ultimate sacriface when it swung off the runway and chrashed at Binbrook during the filming. Fortunately, the crew survived, but the B-17 was totally consumed by fire.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: This film needed a point, and SOME historic accuracy
Review: I enjoy patriotic films, am a warbird buff, and went to highschool with Matt Modine. However IMHO this movie was barely watchable for many reasons. Scene one, bomber returns from mission, skids to a stop at the airfield, and detonates. Uh... there's no gas, bombs, or bullets on that B17, what exploded? Later in the movie they seem to show a crewman get ejected from an aircraft due to cabin decompression... these planes weren't pressurized.

It's nice that the moviemakers took the effort to remove the chin turret from the B17 they used for filming. Kudos for that. But then to have Matt make a big speech during a bomb run that he's worried about a german school right next to the factory... What's that, a pc sanitization of bombing for audiences of the nineties? I believe CEP for a norden bombsight was a quarter mile, and don't you think that the Germans would be smart enough to move their children during a bombing raid??? Yeesh.

This movie placed 90's attitudes and 90's adults in WWII cliches. A better movie might have attempted to capture the essence of the teenagers who left the farms to go to war in these aircraft.

I can't think of why anyone would watch this movie when 12 O'Clock High is still available

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Da Movie
Review: This movie describes the B-17 missions down to the bullets. It gives a vivid and real description of what being in the 8th Air Force was like.I recomend this movie to anyone and everyone who is interested in WWII. This movie is awesome.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Wheres the rest?
Review: The original film at it's theatrical release was excellent.However,the region 2 DVD I have just watched of this film was nowhere near the same standard. It has not been released in the original widescreen format I watched at the picture house, therefore much of the arial combat scenes has been lost left and right of the picture. Pity about all that effort David Putnum put in really.....Could've saved some money and employed an amatuer photographer to do it. There was also one piece of footage missing that I remembered, so how much in total is actually missing? Possibly the missing footage is a region 2 problem though. Like the Battle of Britain film before it, I wouldn't advise anybody to buy it until someone sensible,(Criterion?) releases it properly. Both these excellent and reasonably representative films are currently unavailable for enthusiasts of the genre. There are a lot of people out there, both in the USA and Europe who would buy these films if the complete footage was restored and the aspect ratio corrected. In summary "Nice legs....Shame about the 'boat race'" as we say in London.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Memphis Belle
Review: If you love war movies you will love Memphis Belle. It very accuratley portrays the life at a WW2 air base. Full of action that will keep the viewer on the edge of his seat. I recommend it for all.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good Fictional War movie - Historically Flawed
Review: Prior to filming the 1989 Memphis Belle movie the actors meet with the original B-17 crew members i.e. Pilot Bob Morgan. I think that it was the WWII veterans desire to see their history re-told on film. Not the case for this film. While this version captures some of the "spirit" of the 8th Air Force in WWII it should not be considered a historical account of the 25th mission flown by the "Memphis Belle" of the 91st Bomb Group.

Overall I thought the acting was good, it was well filmed and provokes the viewers emotions. I have spent hour inside of the "D CUP" B-17F and its always nice to see it and several other B-17's on film together. Some of the historical problems are: The script for this 1989 movie is not close to the actual 25th mission flown in 1943, P-51's were not escorting the "Big Friends" during this period of the air war.

If your looking for a great "historical / fictional" account of the 8th Air Force during WWII I would suggest the 1948 movie 12 O' Clock High starring Gregory Peck, Hugh Marlowe and Dean Jagger. A number of WWII 8th Air Force veterans are partial to this movie as "getting it right."


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