My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

Hell's Angels
Dawn Patrol
12 O'clock High
The Flying Tigers
The Dam Busters
The Blue Max
Aces High
The Bridges at Toko-Ri
Flat Top
Battle Of Britain
Dark Blue World
Pearl Harbour
Memphis Belle


Anything else?

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

Flight of the Intruder is not bad for the most part.

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

I forgot all about Flight of the Intruder, which has some great low level A-6 flying and unforgettable A-1 footage! IMHO the slow motion fly past of those two Spads is some of the best aerial footage on film.

On the former list I am partial to The Blue Max, somehow it tickles my classical sense.

Good cast.

However my favorite war movies have little to do with the air.

EDIT:

Ah, just when I thought I had finished...

One of my favorite scenes having to do with WW2 flying has no airplanes in it.

Richard Burton (FO David Campbell) coming back from a flight and having little juice left for a chat, just wanting to be left alone with his beer. Hey, have you seen Johnny...etc.

For those who know Dutch it is Soldier of Orange, Peter Faber as a Mossie Navigator "Zo'n klootzak ben ik nu ook weer niet!"

Sometimes I feel a little like that last sentence... :mh:

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

I would add:

633 Squadron
Strategic Air Commmand

And my favorite
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (Dueling balloons is combat, isn't it?)

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

And you can't go past 'The War Lover' for some superb views of a B-17 beating up an airfield!

But my favourite movie is also 'Those Magnificent Men.....' It has many classic (and hilarious) scenes in it, but the most poignant for me is the scene showing them flying out over the English Channel at Dover. Every time I see that I can picture how it would have looked in 1914 when the first RFC units flew over to France. To fight a war in planes not all that dissimilar from those in the movie.

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

One of my favourites ever is "The Great Waldo Pepper" with Robert Redford. It gives a fantastic feeling for the barnstorming years with great stunts and great actors. The final film scene where Waldo and Ernst Kessler (Ernst Udet?) are performing a stunt dogfight is one of the best flying scenes I have seen.

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

What about something about Tuskegee airmen...HBO production...Nice movie...


Peter:)

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

Magyar Sasok (Hungarian Eagles) from 1943. A real wartime movie, many air force pilots were among the actors.

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

On a more funny side - how about Dr. Strange Love. I really love the B-52 parts with Maj. Kong!

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

I rather liked The Final Countdown. This film is an excellent primer on the subject of "dissimilar air-to-air combat training". ;)

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

And what about the classical ones?
Like: Thirty Seconds over Tokyo (1944).
-RvB-

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

... or "The Fighting Lady" (1944) - can't beat that for color footage of carriers, Hellcats, Turkeys, and Beasts.

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

Here are the movies and documentarys that I have in my collection.

Första Divisionen
Gula Divisionen
The Great Waldo Pepper
Blue Max
Aces High
633 Squadron ( Mosquito)
Mosquito Squadron
A Yank in the RAF
Dark Blue World (Spitfire)
Battle of Britain
Memphis Belle (B-17 Flying Fortress)
War Lover)(B-17 Flying Fortress)
Twelve O´Clock High (B-17 Flying Fortress)
We´ll Meet Again (B-17 Flying Fortress)
The Flying Tigers
The Flying Leathernecks
Fighter Squadron, 1948 (P-47)
Target For Today
US Army Air Force Report
Target for Tonight
God is my Co-pilot (P-40)
Thunderbolt (P-47)
The Air Force Story, Vol One
The Fight For The Sky
Mission Accomplished
Smashing of the Reich.
Catch 22 (B-25 Mitchell)
Tora, Tora, Tora
Pearl Harbor
Midway
A Wing and A Prayer
Memphis Belle, 1945
Combat America
The Battle of Britain (Frank Capra)
China Crisis (Flying Tigers 1945)
Kamikaze
Bridges at Toko-Ri (Korean War)
Flight of the Intruder
Top Gun
The Final Countdown

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

It has been said that "Top Gun" would have been a really great movie if they had cut out all the non-flying scenes.

A couple More Movies
 

English:

"The Sea Shall not Have Them" a great movie about the RAF ASR service. Great shots of a Walrus flying around, along with an ASR LAunch.

"The Purple Plains" Mosquitos in Burma..

and as far as B-36s "Strategic Air Command"

Carlos

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

'Reach for The Sky'

The epic story of the RAF Ace Douglas Bader, not so much air combat but still a great B/W flick of ol' tin legs!

I don't think it has been mentioned in previous post's.

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

Hello all,
Dont forget Angals one five, a real Brit flick...... Septic calling, Septic calling.
The final shot of the cotage at the end of the runway is just classic. Stirring stuff... I can fill me top lip a Stiffening as I type.

Reach for the sky is a fine film, but the use of bubble canopy spits is a bit off putting. I think Bader also downs a FW190 during the Battle of Britain. Still, his determination and resove come over well.

633 Squadron is another of those great films. I think it is the music that lifts above the normal mosquito squadron type films.

Regards
David

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

Thirteen days - U2 shots are great, but the F-8F scene (with real Crusaders!!) is magical and shows the uncanny courage of pilots who faced "birds" (hits from AA) only armed with cameras. For all those who think that recce is an uneventful rear-echelon job... ;)

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

Ok it may not be a film, it is a series but for me- Piece of Cake has some of the best flight scenes containing WW2 planes ever. The Heinkel 111 is also real, as are the two Me 109's (although the Spanish version with British built engines produced after WW2) and the Spitfires (though historically inaccurate) range from Mk1 to Mk 1X versions. There is also a scene where a Spitfire is flown under a tiny bridge by one of the Hanna family and it is just superb, as well as scenes of 109's and Spitfires dogfighting over the white cliffs of Dover!

The Blue Max
 

The Blue Max is one of my favorite war movies. The replica Pfalz D. IIIa is particularly convincing except the wooden fuselage which was never covered with the lozenge fabric. The two Fokker Dr. I triplanes would also never have had the lozenge fabric. I assume the monoplane at the last part of the movie was supposed to represent the Fokker D. VIII. I never read the book but looked at it in a book store and I seem to remember that Hermann Göring was a part of the plot.

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

I don't think anyone's mentioned Appointment In London ( 1953 ). Script co-written by John Wooldridge ( ex Bomber Command ) and starring Dirk Bogarde as 'Tim Mason' - based on characteristics of Guy Gibson.

Some very good Lancaster footage but a creaky script, overshadowed by The Dam Busters.

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

I've just joined up but am an avid film buff so here are a few more off the top of my head. Add these to your list in no particular order; WINGS, Catch-22, The Malta Story, The Purple Plain, 30 Seconds Over Tokyo, One of Our Planes Is Missing, TORA TORA TORA, A Guy Named Joe, Air Force and ZERO Pilot from Japan. There are many more but these are all good ones. There are some bad ones too like God Is My Co-Pilot, Flying Leathernecks and The Flying Tigers both with lots of gun camera footage if you like it. Fighter Squadron is great for the actual P-47s used post war but it's a silly film. Thanks for the Forum, Mel B

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

How about THE HUNTERS? It is not WWII but there's plenty of great flying scenes with Sabres and F84F posing as Korean MiG's.

I did see THE BRIDGES AT TOKO-RI but I think the book was better.

SPACE COWBOYS has a very funny aerobatic scene with Donald Sutherland.

The 007 series features an ASR Fortress in DR. NO and an Avro Vulcan in THUNDERBALL

THE GREAT ESCAPE contains a scene (my favourite!) in which Donald Pleasance (an actual WWII RAF pilot captured and tortured by the Germans) gets to a plane and flies it.

I read that HART'S WAR, JET PILOT (1950, with John Wayne), EMPIRE OF THE SUN also have great air scenes, but I haven't seen these movies myself. Has anybody of you?

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

Here is a (non exhaustive list) of air combat films (WWI, WW2, Korea, Vietnam) :

20000 men a year
633 squadron
Above and beyond
Ace of Aces
Aces high
Aerial gunner
Air America
Air Force
Air Force bat 21
Angels one five
Annapolis story (An)
Appointment in London
Army surgeon
Battle of Britain
Battle of the Eagles/Partzanska eskadrilla
Battle of the V1 (The)/Missiles from hell
Beginning or the end (The)
Behind enemy lines
Bombardier
Bridge too far (A)
Bridges at Toko Ri (The)
Command decision
Dam busters
Dark blue world
Dawn patrol
Dawn patrol /The flight commander
Desesperate journey
Destination Tokyo
DIII-88/The new German Air Force Attacks
Dragonfly squadron
Eagle and the Hawk (The)
Eagle has landed (The)
Enola Gay
Fifth offensive (The)/Sutjeska
Fighter attack
Fighter squadron
Fighting American (The)
Fighting seabees (The)
Flat top/Eagles of the Nest
Flight nurse (The)
Flight of the Intruder (The)
Flying fortress
Flying leathernecks
Flying tigers/Yanks over Burma
God is my co-pilot
Gun bus/Sky bandits
Hanover street
Hell below
Hell's angels
Hell's horizon
Hunters (The)
International squadron
Jet attack
Journey together, the story of the RAF
Kampfgeschwader Lutzow
Lafayette escadrille/Hell Bent for Glory
Malta story (The)
Memphis Belle
Men of the fighting lady
Midway
Mission over Korea
Never so few
Night plane from Chungking
Objective Burma
One minute to zero
One of our aircraft is missing
Operation Crossbow/The Great Spy Mission
Pearl Harbour
Pilota ritorna (un)/Return of the pilot/
Purple plain (The)
Sabre jet
Sea shall not have them (The)
Ships with wings/Find, Fix and Strike
Shout at the devil
Sink the Bismarck
Sky commando
Son of Lassie
Stukas
Suzy
Target for tonight
Target unknown
Task Force
Thirty seconds over Tokyo
This man's Navy/Air squadron 4
Thousand plane raid
Thunder birds
Tora ! Tora! Tora!
Tuskeejee airmen (The)
Twelve o'clock high
Von Richthofen and Brown/The red baron
War lover (The)
Way to the stars (The)/Johny in the clouds
We've never been licked/Remember Pearl Harbour
Wild blue yonder (The) (Story of the B 29 superfortress)
Wing and a prayer/Story of carrier X
Winged victory
Wings
Wings for the eagle/Shadow of the air
Wings over the Pacific
Yank in the RAF
Zeppelin
Espoir. Sierra de Teruel
Instinct de l'ange (L')
Normandie-Niemen
Baltiskjoe Nebo (Baltic sky)
Battle stations
Battle taxi
Berlin via America
Bespokoinoje Chozjasjtvo (Falsely Equipped)/Trouble business
Burning the sky
Courage under fire
Divine soldiers of the sky
Dora crew (The)/Besatzung Dora
Doroga K Zviozdam (The way to the stars)
Flames in the sky
Gente dell'aria
Geschwader Fledermaus/Bat squadron the
Here come the jets
High Flight
Khronika pikurujujtjrgo Bombardirovsjtjika (The story of a dive bomber)
Legion Condor
Legion of condemned (The)
Luciana Serra pilota
Mesta tut Tichije (Calm places)
Muzjestvo (Bravery)
Nashe Serdtse (Our heart)
Nebesnyj Tichochod (The sky flight)
Nebo Moskvy
Night witches of the sky/V Nebe Nochnye vedmy)
Pathfinders (The)
Power dive
Richthofen
Sky raider (The)
Squadron leader X
Tactical assault
Under fire
Weep people of Japan, the last pursuit plane
Wings of the sea
Le grand cirque

Best


Christian

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

Lucky you, I wonder how you can have seen so many movies in your life. I only know a handful of these, and the rest might have disappeared from Blockbusters also.

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

I dont say I have all those films; I only got 2/3 rd of them; its very difficult to find japanese, russian or even italian, movies. As an aviation movie collector (all subjects), I spotted 956 aviation films. I think that more 1500 have been shot since the beginning of the 20th century, the great period being the thirties.

Today, I have 526 films on VHS or DVD.

Best

Christian

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

Yes, in the "Blue Max", at the end of the film, the Morane Saulnier 230 is supposed to be a Fokker D VIII. But the scene remembers a real one which took place on the 3rd July 1918, at Berlin Adlersdorf airfield. That day, Goering flies a prototype, a Zeppelin-Lindau (Dornier) D1. Reinhard, the Richthofen's successor, wants to try it just after, and... a wing breaks loose; Reinhard is killed ! Goering will replace him at the head of the JG 1.

Christian

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

Les chevaliers du ciel

A 'gallic' Top Gun - lots of Mirage 2000 action - check out the clips on the link !

http://www.leschevaliers-lefilm.com/site/intro.html

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

Hey, this week I've seen three great aviation movies: Empire of the Sun, The Flight of the Phoenix (with Hardy Kruger) and The Right Stuff, which you absolutely must get it! I bought the double DVD for a nothing. Boys, I love it! I'm surprised no one mentioned it in this discussion.

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

I dont think "Empire of the sun" is an aviation movie. Aviation is nor the subject, nor the background. We can see only 2 types of aircrafts :
NA. T-6 "Zero" and a P-51D, and, if you have a good spotter eye, a french Nord 3400 (for a Kokusai Ki-76 ?) on the ground. We can add a large scale B-29 model. Aircraft scenes last only 2.17 minutes (1,4% of the movie lenght).
That's quite poor..

Christian

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

Ah, OK. But the setting is great and the air scenes too.

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

My passion is to do with the B-29 Superfortress. Films I have are:

The Thunder From Tinian
Nova: Frozen In Time
American War Eagles: The B-29 Superfortress
Birth Of The B-29
Target Tokyo - First B-29 Superfortress Raid to Tokyo
Flying The Bombers: B-29
Above And Beyond

All but the last are documentaries/training films. Above And Beyond is a very well done Hollywood film on Paul Tibbets and the dropping of the Atom Bomb.

It's always surprised/disappointed me that Hollywood only ever made one film on the most powerful bomber of the war - and perhaps the greatest aircraft of that period.

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

Yeah, right. Too little recognition for such a beautiful plane.

BTW I saw it in the first stages of The Right Stuff. You oughta watch that movie!!

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

I have it. :)

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

There are a lot of films (no documentary) which show the B-29 :

-The wild blue yonder 1951
-The bamboo blonde 1946
-Above and beyond 1953
-The beginning or the end 1947
-Sabre jet 1954
-Hell's horizon 1955
-Enola gay 1980
-The last flight of the Noah's ark 1980
-The right stuff 1983
-Riders of the storm 1986

Best

Christian

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

There's a difference (to me) of films that show the B-29 as a guest appearance and one where the aircraft is a main star.

Of the ones you mentioned only Above and Beyond (which I have) and The Wild Blue Yonder show any good footage of the B-29. With the others the plane is just background, sadly.

I cannnot agree with you and I wonder if you have seen those films... I have them all and I can say that, except "Sabre Jet" and "The right stuff", in others films, B-29 is a real "actor" no background, with outside and inside shootings (pilots in cockpit, mecanich station, gunners in action...), in flight and on the ground, and is, in fact, the only plane used by the production in most of them.
B-29 scenes can be quite long (40 min for "Hell's horizon", 22 min. for "Enola Gay"; 14 min. for "the Beginning or the end"). I recommend those last 3 films.

Best

Christian

Re: My Air Combat movies list - additions are welcome
 

Thats your perogative.