MEMPHIS BELLE: A STORY OF A FLYING FORTRESS Movie Review

1944 William Wyler

Soon after America entered World War II, director William Wyler, then age 40, joined the Army Air Corps. “I was European and Jewish,” he said in an interview for the PBS American Masters series, “and I didn't enlist as an ordinary soldier. I enlisted as a filmmaker to see if I could make a film that would help the war effort in some small way and that's what I did.” The result is this landmark documentary.

To make the film, Wyler and his crew flew in a B-17 named Memphis Belle, “324th Squadron, 91st Heavy Bombardment Group,” on daylight bombing runs over Europe. They shot film when they could and machine guns when they had to. There are no simulations or re-creations or special effects.

It begins with the bombs being loaded in flying fortresses on a clear morning in the English countryside. At the briefing, the pilots learn that their target is the submarine pens in Wilhelmshaven, part of “the greater menace … the power behind the German lust for conquest.” We're introduced to the crew of Memphis Belle, who are on their 25th and final mission. The pilot, Capt. Robert Morgan from Ashville, North Carolina; co-pilot Capt. Jim Veneris, a business administration student from the University of Connecticut; radio operator and gunner Sgt. Bob Hanson, a construction worker from Spokane, Washington; navigator Capt. Chuck Lathan, a chemistry student at Ohio Wesleyan; engineer and top turret gunner Sgt. Harold Lott from Green Bay, Wisconsin; tail gunner Sgt. John Quinlan from Yonkers, New York; ball turret gunner Sgt. Cecil Scott from Rahway, New Jersey; bombadier Capt. Vincent Evans from Fort Worth; waist gunners Sgt. Bill Winchell, who works for a paint company in Chicago; and Sgt. Tony Nastal from Detroit. If they come back from this one, they go home to train others.

Then the cameras move into the bomber with them and the mission begins. It's terrifying, but at the same time, strangely beautiful with the intense blue of the sky, numbers and symbols reflected in the scratched plexiglass, the geometric precision of the B-17s in formation, and the hypnotic drone of the engines. When you realize that the flashes coming from the fuzzy little dark specks outside are real bullets fired from real German fighters, the film achieves a striking degree of reality. It doesn't matter that the color is grainy or that the sound is off in places on the videotape. We see what the crew sees—sky, flak, distant ground, fighters that appear as specks, smoke. And we hear what they hear—the guns, the radio (“Dammit,” Morgan mutters, “don't yell on that intercom.”).

Memphis Belle is just a remarkable and influential piece of filmmaking. Virtually every film made about the air war since pays homage to it. Though Wyler may not have enjoyed the public recognition of some other directors of his generation, his fellow filmmakers realized how good he was, and his work was respected within the industry. Everyone knew that he had shown the European air war the way it was, and those images have been repeated and copied hundreds of times. And, decades later, Hollywood gave the film its ultimate flattery with a fictional remake that's about a third as good as the original.

Producer: U.S. War Department, William Wyler. Running Time: 43 minutes. Format: VHS, Beta.