Masters of the Air: Episode 9

 

            Well, it’s finally over. The series we waited for years to see. Did it finish strong? Let’s see.

It opens with a mission to Berlin on Feb. 3, 1945. It takes a while for us to know that the bomber that is being focused on is Rosenthal’s. Again the series has a problem with identifying the characters with their masks on. His bomber is crippled and Rosie bails out behind Russian lines and lands in a battle. This is the first of several developments that challenge credulity. The episode follows the template of the last few episodes. It jumps around following Rosenthal, Crosby, and Bucky and Buck. Spoiler alert, I can’t do this review without pointing out some of the ridiculous scenes.

            Let’s take each at a turn. Rosie is rescued by Russians and has a long road home. Along the way, the series manages to force a Holocaust scene to match “Band of Brothers”. But in BoB, it made sense that they would run into a labor camp. In Masters, Rosie is riding in a car with a Soviet general. They stop right in front of the camp and Rosie is kicked out of the car by an officer. This gives Rosie (who is Jewish, of course) the chance to walk into the camp and see all the corpses.  Box checked. Suddenly, Rosie is back and we only get his description of his travels. He tells this to Crosby who responds with another whine about war being hell. That’s right, the character with the desk job has PTSD and the character who has flown over 40 missions, been shot down twice, survived a battle, saw a concentration camp, and made several stops on the way back to England is seemingly unaffected!  The series has done a terrible job developing its characters.

            Crosby’s arc has him still moping. When the equipment room is left locked, he busts open the door to dole out some parachutes. He then goes to confront the man responsible and after the officer says what we all are thinking – dude, I haven’t seen you on any missions, Crosby proves he’s not a whiny milquestoast by shoving the guy’s face into his meal. Hey screenwriter, it’s too late for this. By the way, Crosby is going to be a daddy, but we don’t see Jean in the episode. Apparently, her spy escapades are no longer worthy of coverage.

            Buck and Bucky start the episode in Stalag III with the trio of Red Tails. They have spent all that time with no attempt to tunnel out. The Americans are nearing, so they are moved at night during a snow storm. It’s not horrific, just miserable. At one point, a P-51 strafes the column. At night. Bucky complains to the German officer about marching them at night as though it is more dangerous than moving in the daytime! Like strafing is less likely in daylight! This episode is the P-51 episode because later we get another lone Mustang strafing their new camp, but don’t worry, it only strafes the Germans.  USA! USA! USA!  Eventually, B & B decide to escape, but Bucky is caught. Buck has a run in with some Nazi Youths, so we get an action scene. B&B get reunited in a sappy way. The war is winding down and they go on one last mission together, holding hands the whole way. Just kidding. The series decided to cover this raid where they drop parcels to Dutch civilians. That’s right. The series that avoided showing bombing raids, leaves us with a milk run so we can see the lovely Dutch windmills! I don’t know if it was a CGI windmill. We finish with the 100^th flying off into the sunset taking our expectations with them. You may notice I have said nothing about the Red Tails. They are simply there, with nothing to do.

            I always wonder why movies and series that are bad and will be compared to previous movies or films, choose to remind viewers of them.  In this case, we get a scene with a pirate mug ala “Twelve O’Clock High”. And there is a shot of a man bicycling and some cows in a field to remind of “Band of Brothers”. It was just sad to see that. What might have been. I have said from the start that the screenwriters made poor decisions. The series should have concentrated on B&B with Egan playing the Dick Winters leadership role. He was a great leader, but you don’t get that from the series.  The series did not develop a leader. It should have concentrated on one crew reaching the 25 mark with other crews going down. And then switched to Rosenthal for his second tour. And nothing else! I got to the point where I hated Crosby. His character arc was a waste of time. He came off as though the series had to balance all the heroes with a lame-ass. The sad thing is that I checked out a biography of him and he flew 32 missions and was lauded by Curtis LeMay as one of the best leaders in the 8^th Air Force. Did anyone get that impression from the series?  The man’s memoir was a key source for the screenwriters and this is the way they treated him? Give me a break.

            Obviously, I was tremendously disappointed with the series. I would compare my mood to when I watched the “Catch-22” series. In that case, the problem was the screenwriters threw the book in the trash can and decided to go their own way. MOA went a different route. As far as I can tell at this point, it stuck to the characters’ actual stories, but with some enhancement. It’s flaw was the decision on what subplots to pursue and having too many subplots. But it’s biggest flaw was giving us some incredible combat scenes and then no more.  What a tease! Compare THAT to “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific”. Two series that made little use of CGI, but got the human elements right. Well, two out of three ain’t bad. Maybe we should think of “Generation War” as the third in the trilogy and just forget about MOA.

GRADE =  D

OVERALL = D

 

Masters of the Air (2024)

 

            It has only taken eleven years, but we finally have the last part of the Spielberg / Hanks WWII trilogy.  It was 2012 when HBO first announced the project.  In 2019, HBO dropped and Apple + took over.  Filming began in 2021, but the Covid pandemic set the project back.  The series is based mainly on the book “Masters of the Air:  America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany” by Donald Miller.  It concentrates on the 100^th Bomber Group, which was known as the “Bloody Hundredth”.  First, that would have been a better title.  Second, don’t get too invested in any of the characters.  The first three episodes were directed by Cary Fukunaga (“Beasts of No Nation”).  The series cost about $250 million, which might explain the nine episodes, instead of ten.

            The series gets started by immediately explaining why the two main characters are named Buck (Austin Butler) and Bucky (Callum Turner).  This is our first clue that the teleplays will adhere to historical accuracy.  Major Gale “Buck” Cleven and Major John “Bucky” Egan are best friends in the 100^th Bomber Group.  It is headed for Great Britain.  Bucky goes on ahead so we can have a stricken bomber scene in the first episode.  This will not be “Band of Brothers” which introduced the characters by way of boot camp.  The group follows along via Greenland.  Buck has to make a landing in gale force winds, proving he is a very talented pilot who is perpetually cool.  The first mission is to bomb u-boat pens.  The mission is aborted.  Another clue that the series will be fact-based. 

            By the second episode, the group has a new commanding officer.  This episode gives props to the ground crews.  Our first successful mission is to Norway.  It completes the redemption arc for sad sack navigator Lt. Harry Crosby (Anthony Boyle).  The other focus is on the bomber piloted by Lt. Curtis Biddick (Barry Keoghan).  Bucky has to decide whether to slow the group down to protect Biddick’s ship.  We get our second crash landing.  It’s not the “Bloody Hundredth” yet, but is already apparent that getting to 25 missions will be very difficult. 

            The cast can be underwhelming, but so were the casts of BoB and The Pacific.  Austin Butler is the only major star and he is perfect as Buck.  Those who haven’t seen “Elvis” are going to be exposed to a heavy dose of his charisma and good looks.  If the project wanted to draw female viewers, he was an outstanding choice.  It is probable that years from now, the rest of the main actors will be familiar faces.  And Maj. Gale Cleven will be famous, like Dick Winters.  I have not read the book yet, so I cannot affirm whether the other characters are actual people.  As of now, only Harry Crosby (who wrote a book entitled “Wing and a Prayer”) and Harold Huglin (the first commanding officer) have Wikipedia pages.  That will be changing.  I double checked on Cleven and he is based on a real B-17 pilot, but I did not read when he died.  One of the suspenseful factors in the series will be seeing who will survive.  It could be brutal.  And should be brutal.  As the air war was.

            Truthfully, after Cleven, the biggest star in the movie is the B-17 Flying Fortress.  It was the third most produced bomber in history after the B-24 Liberator and the Ju-88 (which is mentioned as attacking the “Bloody Hundredth”).  I pray B-24 veterans can tap into the homage to all bomber crews.  The B-17 is the third most famous plane from WWII (first and second being the Spitfire and the Mustang), but I doubt most viewers are familiar with it.  Everyone that watches the series will learn that it carried 10 crewmen.  That makes doing the math (or maths) is easy.  60 downed bombers meant 600 Americans either killed or captured (I think one of the threads will be covering a captured crew).  And viewers will learn that the bomber could take a beating.  Despite this, many will be going down.  There is a scene where the Yanks get into a discussion with some Brits about daylight bombing versus night bombing.  The snooty Limeys warn that the losses will be untenable.  Our boys accuse the Brits of trading safety for terrible bombing results.  This discussion was much too brief.  Hopefully, the series will return to it after some of the characters have died flying in broad daylight to bomb heavily defended targets.  It’s an issue that needs discussion. 

            Besides the actors and their characters, the other big question is how good the special effects are.  It is clearly apparent from the first two episodes that a lot of the $250 million went into visual effects.  They are amazing.  So good, that you will wonder whether they used actual B-17s for some taxiing and flight scenes.  They did create three replicas, one oversized model for interior filming (which is authentic).  The CGI is flawless.  That includes the belly landing.  We no longer need to pay a very  brave stunt pilot (Paul Mantz did it for $4,500) to crash land a Flying Fortress, like in “Twelve O'Clock High”.   The flak effects stand out.  It is those scenes that will make you wonder how anyone survived those missions.  And then you add in the fighters, which realistically whiz by in a blur.  How the heck did they ever manage to shoot any down?  And how did the gunners avoid hitting other bombers?  

            It’s too early to compare the series to the others in the trilogy.  The first two episodes set the hook.  The effects don’t disappoint.  The cast looks comfortable in their roles.  They went through a two-week boot camp with Dale Dye.  The dialogue gets the banter right.  Although there are some cliches, like the redemption for the navigator, the drinking scenes, and countingthe bombers when they return,  the series looks like it will be grounded in reality.  I saw nothing that caused me to shake my head.  I just hope viewers don’t find the series boring because it sticks to what actually happened to men like Cleven and Egan.  And I hope the series does not sugar-coat the losses.  Only one of four bomber crews reached 25 missions in 1943.  The series should be as brutal as “The Pacific”.  Here’s hoping I shed some tears.

GRADE  =  B+

 

 

MEMPHIS BELLE (1990) vs. MEMPHIS BELLE (1943)

VS.  

 

“Memphis Belle” is a war movie directed by Michael Caton-Jones loosely based on the WWII war documentary by William Wyler.  How loosely based will soon be apparent.  The movie was co-produced by Wyler’s daughter Catherine.  It cost $23 million and made $27 million.  That’s one million dollars per historical error.

The movie is set in the summer of 1943 at an air base in England.  An Army public relations officer, Lt. Col. Derringer (John Lithgow), is there to inspire the home front with a story about the first B-17 crew to complete the  25 missions tour.  He introduces us to the men via voiceover.  They are a melting pot of American warriors.  A heterogeneous unit – imagine that.  The enlisted consist of a virgin, a reform school graduate, a Catholic boy, a ladies’ man, a farm boy, and a poet.  The Captain is a clean-cut and by the book.  His co-pilot is the opposite.  The bombardier had four years of medical school, or so he says.  The navigator is morose and cowardly.   According to Derringer, the American public is questioning the idea of daylight bombing.  Since the Memphis Belle is undergoing repairs, the crew has a front row seat for a crash landing that ends up in disaster.  Could this be a portent?

The next scene is a big dance in a hangar which is a pretty good period piece with 1940s clothing and British birds.  There is a chanteuse crooning Swing music and lots of jitterbugging.  In an homage to 1940s Hollywood, Clay (Harry Connick, Jr.) gets on stage to sing “Danny Boy”.  This reminded me of Ricky Nelson in “Rio Bravo”.  The morning briefing explains that the target is Bremen.  It is emphasized that the factory is surrounded by a hospital, school, residential area, and petting zoo (I added that last one).  Thank God we had precision bombing which if applied properly would avoid hitting anything but the factory.

Montage of preparation – arming, fueling, etc.  There is a delay in take-off so Danny (Eric Stolz) can recite one of his poems ( actually “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death” by W.B. Yeats ).  Nice touch, Danny Downer.  The take-off is majestic with appropriate music.  Cinematic magic turns the five available bombers into at least eight and CGI into more for the formation shots.  The mission is the kitchen sink of anything that could possibly happen to a bomber in WWII Europe plus a few that could only happen in a Hollywood film.  Perhaps a list would make this clear.

1.        The Memphis Belle almost collides with another B-17 in a cloud.  This movie would have sucked if the collision would have occurred!

2.       A small number of German fighters (actually Spanish Ha-1112’s masquerading as Me-109’s) attack and then run away so we can move on to the next problem.

3.       The lead bomber is shot down so the MB has to take the lead.  How cinematically convenient!

4.       There is a hole in the wing which causes them to lose a lot of fuel.  Start the clock.

5.       The target is obscured and Capt. Deerborn makes the decision to bring the entire squadron back around to avoid hitting the petting zoo.

6.       Rascal’s (Sean Astin) ball turret gets shot out from under him and he is left dangling.

7.       There is a fire on board.

8.       Danny is wounded and only med school volunteer Val (Billy Zane) can save him.

9.       A fire in an engine forces Deerborn to crash dive to put it out.

10.    One wheel won’t come down (hey, isn’t that what happened to the crash-landing bomber from the opening?)

11.    The fuel runs out so they are down to one engine.

12.    Virge almost falls through the bomb bay.

Here is another list – clichés in “Memphis Belle”.

1.        There are command issues between Deerborn and his co-pilot Luke (Tate Donovan).

2.       Virge talks about his future plans of opening a chain of hamburger joints.

3.       Virge has sex in the plane.

4.       The crew rags some rookies from “Mother and Country” – can I have your stuff when you get shot down?  Ha! Ha!

5.       Phil (D.B. Sweeney) thinks his number is up.

6.       The ground crews wait for the bombers to return and count them as they do.

This is one of the corniest war movies ever made.  At one point, Deerborn talks to the “Memphis Belle” in a  schmaltzy and wooden way.  Wooden would be the best description of Modine’s performance.  The rest of the cast reminds of “Platoon” in its potential, but does not stand up to the comparison well.  The script does not help them.  The dialogue is sappy and the performances are too sincere.  After bombing the target (perfectly), Deerborn says “Okay boys, we’ve done our job for Uncle Sam, now we’re flying for ourselves.”  Modern actors dropped into a cliché-ridden 1940s war movie plot.  They did buy into it and I bet some of them are embarrassed by their participation.  I imagine they had fun filming it and it sure was more pleasant for them than the “Platoon” cast.  No boot camp for these pretty boys.

The effects are a mixed bag.  The five B-17s add a lot of authenticity (one of them was destroyed in a take-off when it clipped a tree and burned completely).  The interior of the bomber looks like the real deal and the routines are proper.  The air combat is fine with decent radio chatter (unlike “Red Tails”, to name but one).  There’s lots of action which fits the goal of mindless entertainment.  Unfortunately, the CGI is inferior and jarring.  The word “fake” comes to mind.  One bit of corn that works effectively is narration of some letters from relatives of lost men over actual footage of bombers going down.

In conclusion, “Memphis Belle” is the “U-571” of air combat movies.  Corny.  Cliché-ridden.  Predictable.  Tactically farcical.  More importantly, I would describe both of them as obstacle porn.  A continuous string of problems to be overcome by the heroes.  If you are into that kind of entertainment and could care less about accuracy and realism, break out the pop corn and turn off your brain.

“Memphis Belle:  A Story of a Flying Fortress” is the celebrated documentary about the first bomber to complete 25 missions in the 8^th Air Force.  It was directed by William Wyler (“The Best Years of Our Lives”) who at the time was a major in the U.S. Army Air Forces.  He bravely flew on several missions and ended up losing hearing in one ear.  One of his cinematographers was killed in action.  Wyler won best documentary for “The Fighting Lady” which was about an aircraft carrier.

His “Memphis Belle” is in Technicolor which must have enhanced the message intended by Wyler.  The purpose of the documentary was to bring the air crew experience home to the home front and inspire the public at a time when support for the bombing campaign was waning.  The narration is very propagandistic and anti-German.  Where the movie is dedicated to all the airmen who fought in the skies over Europe, Wyler dedicates his film to only the 8^th Air Force. 

The doc covers the last mission from briefing to kissing the ground on return.  The basic arc is used in the movie, but obviously the 1990 reenactment adds a lot of Hollywood.  The doc does take a few liberties of its own.  The MB was not the first bomber to complete 25 missions.  It was chosen early on as the potential first because Wyler felt that Capt. Robert Morgan had a reputation for competency (and survivability) and he liked the name of the bomber (Morgan’s girl-friend).  Ironically, the back-up plane in case the MB did not make it (Hell’s Angels), actually won the race to go home after 25 missions.  As far as the last mission, in the doc it is against Wilhelmshafen and is fairly hairy.  The flak and fighters variety.  Most of the footage seen in the film (parts come from at least six other missions) was shot on a B-17 named Jersey Bounce because the MB was under repair.  It was the MB crew on board, however.  Speaking of which, none of the characters in the movie match the names or backgrounds of the actual crew.  Most importantly, the last mission of the MB was a milk run (against submarine pens at Lorient, France) which would have been boring for a documentary and death to a feature film.  Wyler was a Hollywood director, after all.  It does strike me as a bit unethical for a documentarian.  The documentary is much better quality than the movie, but you have to get past the jingoistic narration.

MOVIE  =  C

DOCUMENTARY  =  B

THE DOCUMENTARY