Posted on 01/19/2012 6:23:52 AM PST by Bender2
Red Tails: Film Review
7:53 PM PST 1/18/2012 by Todd McCarthy
The Bottom Line: Action-and-effects version of the Tuskegee airmen's story flies only when it's off the ground.
The George Lucas-produced labor of love stars Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrence Howard as Tuskegee airmen in World War II.
The experience of black American aviators in World War II gets a whitewash in Red Tails. The story of the 996 pilots (and some 15,000 ground personnel) who distinguished themselves in the air in the face of institutional racism is a great one and, at least, will come to the attention of more people due to this long-gestating project from Lucasfilm. But every character here is so squeaky clean, and the prejudice as depicted is so toothless and easily overcome, that the film feels like a gingerly fantasy version of what, in real life, was an exceptional example of resilient trail-blazing. The tale's considerable built-in inspirational value will move and impress black audiences of all ages and would do the same to a wider public if sufficiently promoted, but the determinedly simplistic approach will curtail interest among any viewers hungry for some real history. The anticipated low interest level for this material overseas is cited as a major reason the project took so long to get off the ground.
A key signal of how much you can trust any contemporary movie about either of the 20th century's world wars is how, and even if, it depicts smoking; if, like this one, it buckles to current fashion and scarcely depicts soldiers smoking at all in a period when cigarettes were part of ration kits, then it's frankly not to be trusted in any other respect either.
(Excerpt) Read more at hollywoodreporter.com ...
“The Bridges at Toko-Ri” was a pretty good movie when I was a kid...............
The force that carried the brunt of the air war to the Luftwaffe prior to D-Day was the 8th Air Force. It’s fighter component was the 8th Air Force Fighter Command under MG William Kepner. When Gen Jimmy Doolittle took over command of the 8th Air Force, among his first directives was to order Kepner to destroy German fighters whenever and wherever possible by engaging them in the air and destroying them by attacking their airdromes and transportaion targets so as to secure air superiority over Europe before the invasion.
Accordingly, Commanders such as Col Hub Zemke of the 56th Fighter group developed tactics such as the Zemke Fan which called for the fighters to break free of the slow bomber formations and aggressively fan out and break up the German fighter Gruppen and Geschwaders as they were forming up. Tactics such as this were wildly successful and led to the destruction of the German Fighter Arm. Accordingly, air superiority was established over Europe prior to D-Day. It is a hideous reality that the heavy bomber crews were being used as bait to lure the Luftwaffe to battle in a war of attrition that they inevitably lost. The German Landser (infantryman) had a cynical saying; If you see a silver aircraft, it is American. If you see a camoflauge one it is British. If it is invisible it is German.
The 332 Fighter group was assigned to the 15th Air force out of Ramatelli, Italy. Their orders were close escort and protection of the heavy bombers and they did a superb job. The myth at the time wass to say that they were incapable of performing such tasks requiring technological skill and courage. We do not need to calumny the fine reputations of the courageous white fighter pilots of great outfits like the 56th and 4th Fighter groups who did so much to achieve victory on the Western front against the truly formidable German foe by implying a new myth that they did not want to protect the bombers so as to seek personal glory in aerial dogfights.
BTW I am a black man who owns 10 books about the 332nd, who regard them as amongst the greatest of my personal hereoes and I take a back seat in my admiration of their superb accomplishments to no one. I think it wrong to imply disparegment of the white pilots who were obeying their orders to engage the enemy in a specific way so as to extol black pilots. Lets not pit these great Americans against one another now. Their was too much of that in 1944-45.
The force that carried the brunt of the air war to the Luftwaffe prior to D-Day was the 8th Air Force. It’s fighter component was the 8th Air Force Fighter Command under MG William Kepner. When Gen Jimmy Doolittle took over command of the 8th Air Force, among his first directives was to order Kepner to destroy German fighters whenever and wherever possible by engaging them in the air and destroying them by attacking their airdromes and transportaion targets so as to secure air superiority over Europe before the invasion.
Accordingly, Commanders such as Col Hub Zemke of the 56th Fighter group developed tactics such as the Zemke Fan which called for the fighters to break free of the slow bomber formations and aggressively fan out and break up the German fighter Gruppen and Geschwaders as they were forming up. Tactics such as this were wildly successful and led to the destruction of the German Fighter Arm. Accordingly, air superiority was established over Europe prior to D-Day. It is a hideous reality that the heavy bomber crews were being used as bait to lure the Luftwaffe to battle in a war of attrition that they inevitably lost. The German Landser (infantryman) had a cynical saying; If you see a silver aircraft, it is American. If you see a camoflauge one it is British. If it is invisible it is German.
The 332 Fighter group was assigned to the 15th Air force out of Ramatelli, Italy. Their orders were close escort and protection of the heavy bombers and they did a superb job. The myth at the time wass to say that they were incapable of performing such tasks requiring technological skill and courage. We do not need to calumny the fine reputations of the courageous white fighter pilots of great outfits like the 56th and 4th Fighter groups who did so much to achieve victory on the Western front against the truly formidable German foe by implying a new myth that they did not want to protect the bombers so as to seek personal glory in aerial dogfights.
BTW I am a black man who owns 10 books about the 332nd, who regard them as amongst the greatest of my personal hereoes and I take a back seat in my admiration of their superb accomplishments to no one. I think it wrong to imply disparegment of the white pilots who were obeying their orders to engage the enemy in a specific way so as to extol black pilots. Lets not pit these great Americans against one another now. Their was too much of that in 1944-45.
Point taken.
And strange how in that movie, Belgium looked just like the California high desert ... like around Ft Irwin.
GOOD.
I’m going to Redtails for the P-51s, Me-262s and FW-190s (Who’s afraid of the new Focke-Wulf? I AM!).
Grandpa was the kind of guy who wouldn't say anything bad about anything. :-) Geez, I miss him sometimes.
Gadzooks! Not sure what Battle of the Bulge film y'all are talking about... 
but the 1965 one with Hank Fonda, Robert Ryan, Dana Andrews, Robert 'We will be as hard as the steel of our tanks' Shaw, Charles Bronson, Telly Savalas, George Montgomery, Ty Hardin and James MacArthur was shot the Sierra de Guadarrama mountain range, Spain, with the indoors shooting done in Madrid as per http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058947/
Exactly. I never owned a slave or shot an Indian and could care less about ancient history. I used to be all socially conscious and all, but they've cried "wolf" about a million times too many.
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Check out a movie called “Dark Blue World” about Czech pilots flying for the RAF.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0244479/
There is something unhistorical and unhealthy about the amount of attention given to minorities during the war (and during American history in general).
Only a handful of movies about the Korean war come to mind. Most were good.
Korea was a forgotten war. I knew a Korean war vet who was pissed when the Vietnam Vets got their memorial before they did.
The more I read about that war the more I came to realize how bloody it was. And how America was caught flat-footed and struggled to come back only to be sucked into the UN morass.
“...smart pones...”
First this, next the iPone. :)
Went back to my typo. I’m ‘LOL’ing out loud. Thanks for the morning chuckle.
The "not lost a bomber" is a legend recently torn up on the History channel. Another source:
Alan Gropman interviewed General Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., years after World War II, and specifically asked him if the “never lost a bomber” statement were true. General Davis replied that he questioned the statement, but that it had been repeated so many times people were coming to believe it"
http://www.tuskegee.edu/sites/www/Uploads/files/About%20US/Airmen/Nine_Myths_About_the_Tuskegee_Airmen.pdf
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