Movie Review: Fortress

Fortress

1. Short review: 

2. Long review:
2.1. What I liked: The airplanes and the CGI.
Roller-coaster or walk-in-the-park? Roller coaster.

2.2. What I did not like:  The acting and some of the writing. The acting was cheesy but okay. The writing suffered from a lack of research.

2.3. Who I think is the audience: Air combat history buffs.

2.4. Is the movie appropriate for children to see?  No. Profanity and lots of it.

2.5. On the basis of viewing this movie, will I pay to see the sequel? If there were a sequel, I would pay the same I paid to see Fortress. I guess that's a left-handed 'yes'.

2.6. Other:  How I rate movies.
-- I want my money back.
-- Worth a rental, not more. <-- Fortress 
-- Worth first-run theater price once.
-- I will pay first-run theater price to see it again.

I saw Fortress on cable. I think it went straight to DVD; that is, it never played in theaters. There is some evidence that it played theaters in England.

The plot in a nutshell:

The B-17 Lucky Lass flew bombing missions over Italy from a North African base. Her aircraft commander was killed on one mission, so Wally (Donnie Jeffcoat), the right-seater, got promoted to the left seat; that is, he became the aircraft commander. The Lucky Lass got a new right-seater, Michael (Bug Hall), and two replacements for the waist gunners who were also killed on the last mission. 

Michael had trouble fitting into the crew, but with time and effort he won their respect and led the crew out of danger (kinda, kinda not) when Wally got killed. Michael got promoted to the left seat; new replacement showed up; rinse and repeat.

For the little I paid for this movie, I enjoyed it. The acting was so-so, but I liked Howard Gibson in the role of Caparelli, the maintenance chief.

I liked the CGI airplanes. They were well done. I don't know if P-40 Warhawks ever flew escort for B-17s, but the P-40s in the movie were brilliantly done. I especially liked the yellow checkerboard tail motif.

In the movie, a P-40 flew a steep climbing turn to shake off and take out a ME 109. I don't know if a P-40 jock ever did that, but I know it can be done and with that exact maneuver. I had two friends who flew F-51s (the Air Force designation for the Army P-51) and took out F-86s with that manuver. I also met an Egyption Air Force major who use the same maneuver in '73 with a MIG 19 to take out an Israeli F-4. Would an American P-40 jock in '43 have the stuff to take out a Luftwaffe 109 pilot with that maneuver? Possible, but not likely.

Fortress showed that good CGI can be done cheaply. I said it is worth a rental, and -- since they released it straight to DVD -- that means they succeeded. Check it out.

Addendum:

There is what must be an administrative hearing before the squadron commander over a theft of officers' club scotch by one of the crew of the Lucky Lass. The prosecuting officer cites the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice). This is an anachronism. The UCMJ did not exist until 1950. During the Second World War, the US Army Air Corps operated under the Articles of War. Something the writers would have discovered had they googled the UCMJ and spent 10 minutes reading the article.

Second addendum:

At the end of the movie, the producers complained that no one who had a flying B-17 let them (the producers) use their (the owners') plane. I saw why. Look, boys, just 'cause y'all wanna make a picture 'bout B-17s don't mean I'm gonna turn cartwheels over the opportunity to show off my plane. I get them opportunities twice a week. And they pay. Y'all want my plane in your picture? Pony up some money. Else, go on back to Hollywood and get your special effects department to whip up somethin'.

Third addendum:

Bug Hall? Your headliner is named Bug? That was cute when he starred in the movie of The Little Rascals, but that was eighteen years ago. How can anyone take you seriously as an actor when you insist on being called Bug? Your name's Brandon. Use it.

Fourth addendum:

I discovered that the checked-tail P40s in the movie truly existed. They were from the 325th Fighter Group. The group flew P40s from April to September 1943 when they swapped their Warhawks for Thunderbolts; half a year later they were flying Mustangs. And, yeah, they escorted bombers, and they often defeated 109s until Messerschmidt developed the 'f' model. 30 July 1943 they baited the Jerries to come up and play and shot down more than half of those who took the bait.

Here is a picture of checked-tail P40:

I have never seen a P40 with such a long canopy before. Unusual modification, that.

YMMV.

2.7. Links: IMDb review

eBook Review: Half a Wing, Three Engines and a Prayer

Brian O'Neill, Half a Wing, Three Engines and a Prayer

Product Details

• File Size: 5701 KB
• Print Length: 454 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Up to 4 simultaneous devices, per publisher limits
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (April 30, 1999)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B006B7LRQW
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars (43 customer reviews)
• Price: $9.99

1. Short review: 

2. Long review:

2.1. What I liked:  Stories of the young men who flew the Big Bird early (1943-early 1944) over Germany. Follow-up on their lives after the war. The photos.
Roller-coaster or walk-in-the-park? Because it is a book about aerial combat, it should be a roller coaster. Sometimes it is. But it is a roller coaster with all the excitement of a Travel Channel travelogue. I never felt like I was there.

2.2. What I did not like:
2.2.1. The formatting. Evidently this 'eBook' was scanned from a paper version. The quality of the print runs the gamut from passable to difficult. The best that can be said for it is that it is not illegible. Brad Geyser's Amazon review has more details.
2.2.2. The time to load. Perhaps the book loads slow because of all the photos in it. I dunno. But it took 9 seconds to load. Each time. Every time. Yes, I counted.
2.2.3. The lack of excitement. I don't know how he did it, but Mr O'Neill drained all the adventure from the stories of these men. As B. Barrett said in his Amazon review, the account is "[f]actual but dry". Even when I read the story of Staff Sergeant Joseph Sawicki, one arm shot away, buckling two wounded crewmates into their 'chutes and booting them out of their flaming Fortress to save their lives, I did not feel anything. Rightfully, Sawicki's actions should have been honored with a posthumous award of the CMoH. How do you drain that heroism of feeling? I dunno. Ask Mr O'Neill. He did it.

2.3. Who I think is the audience:  The families of the airmen named in the book. If your daddy or your granddaddy is in the book, buy the trade paperback and highlight his name.

2.4. Is the book appropriate for children to read?  Yes.

2.5. On the basis of reading this book, will I buy the author's next book? No.

2.6. Other:

     This book started as a factual account of the experiences of Bob Hullar's B-17 crew. Somewhere it morphed into an aggregate personal oral history of the 303rd Bomb Group. Well, at least an aggregate personal oral history of the missions that Bob Hullar flew.
     The problem is that Mr O'Neill was not there. He interviewed these men decades after the fact. Any emotion they felt when they recalled these events -- and I am certain they felt emotion -- was lost in the translation.
     I do not have a relative who flew with the 303rd. I never felt connected to the events Mr O'Neill related. But I got something that many related to 303rd crew may have missed: A feeling of outrage at the haphazard way the Eighth Air Force threw away the lives of bomber crews on disjointed missions that contributed nothing to winning the war.
     For example, the Eighth Air Force sent unescorted bombers into Germany in 1943 to bomb industrial targets like the ball bearing factories at Schweinfurt. Evidently they had read Giulio Douhet's The Command of the Air (aka 'The Theory of Frightfulness') and bought into its tenets. These raids did not work. And the price was excessive: 25% losses on that raid.  And still the command ordered more raids like it.
     The RAF won the Battle of Britain because the Luftwaffe turned from bombing airfields to bombing London. You would think at least the Brits would learn from their own recent history: Knock out the enemy air force first. But, no, the Italian captain must be right. We can destroy the morale of the enemy from the air. We don't need no stinkin' infantry. "[Douhet] believed that 300 tons of bombs over the most important cities would end a war in less than a month. This can be compared with the fact that the allies during War War II dropped in excess of 2.5 million tons of bombs on Europe without this being directly decisive for the war."
     I can justify bombing the submarine pens at Bremen. I can justify bombing railroad centers. I can justify bombing the V-1 launch sites. But bombing ball bearing factories? Better to spend the bombs, fuel, and men bombing Luftwaffe bases. Or Wehrmacht depots.
     The best part of the book relates the lives of the B-17 crews after they had flown through Hell. It made me feel good to know that they came back to live full lives. God knows they deserved them.
     Another reviewer wrote that the book made him feel as if he flew with the crews of the 303rd on their missions, but I never felt that way.
     I wanted to like this book, but I didn't. Still, it is a flying book, so it gets three stars from me.

Addendum:
     Years ago, I had a friend who flew in a B-17 crew in the Eighth Air Force. I think he was a gunner, but honestly I don't recall. I heard him read a poem about his piece of the war. He wrote of his father eagerly questioning him about his experience; his father had missed service in the First World War and wanted his son to fill the hole in his life.
     All my friend could recall were the cold barracks with a single stove for heat, the thin blankets, getting the shakes when on leave at Blackpool, the terror in the air over Germany -- terror without details, and moving one cot closer to the
stove and adding one more blanket to his covers when a squadron mate did not return. That was the story of his war: One cot closer to the fire.
     I heard my friend read that story and I knew in my bowels that there was no glory in the thin air over Germany. Just fear.

Second addendum:
     My notes from the book show four typos:
     1. Location 951: VIII vice VII,
     2. Location 4281: were vice was, 
     3. Location 5233: 1966-1967 vice 1966-1977, and
     4. Location 5412: Consul vice Counsul.

     I highlighted nine passages in the book:
     1. "[Y]ou heard that sound [of B-17 engines starting], you knew for sure that today men were going to die."
     2. "[T]he high command thought we were expendable."
     3. "I always had the feel- ing (sic) that the losses were justifiable some way."
     4. "After 16 missions they were the most senior crew in the Squadron." (What does this say about the loss rate? Nothing good.)
     5. "According to the metro winds we got in our briefing flight plan, the winds were supposed to be 320 degrees at 110 knots (!) at bombing altitude of 25,000 feet. I could tell from the way the winds were drifting us on the way to the English coast that they were not as metro had forecasted and the metro winds for the balance of the trip wouldn't hold true either." (Best weather advice I ever got from a flight instructor: Treat all forecast winds as headwinds.)
     6. "There was much anger among the 41st CBW's bomber crews at debriefing. As Elmer Brown recalls, 'I was furious about them having sent us up in the dark taht way, so that those midair collisions could happen. This was one the high command really screwed up.'" (Yeah, they screwed up with radio silence, too. IMO Eaker, Doolittle, and Spaatz all should have been court-martialed for dereliction of duty and manslaughter. Pour encourager les outres.)
     7. "Two minutes of combat is a lifetime." (Amen.)
     8. "[T]he day's operations really underscored the impact that seasoned combat veterans could have on the outcome of a mission. The skill and determination that Brown and McCormick showed was what made the difference between a successful strike and a failed one . . . ."
     9. "All during these years, Bud Klint's priorities were the same as those of the other veterans and fathers of his generation -- earn an income, raise his children . . . , get ahead in his career -- but in all this time Klint's World War II experiences were 'always there. In the background.'" (This one quote summarizes the book.)

     Three stars out of five. YMMV.

2.7. Links:
Bert Stiles, Serenade to the Big Bird (If you really, really want to read a book about B-17 crew, read this one. One of the best air combat books ever written.)
B-17 Flying Fortress in Action (coffee table picture book)
B-17 in Action (No. 63) (coffee table picture book)
B-17 in Action (No. 12) (coffee table picture book)

2.8. Buy the book:  Half a Wing, Three Engines and a Prayer