Tora, Tora, Tora question.

Jerry O'Neill · **Posted:** Mon Dec 10, 2012 8:42 am

Thanks Catch-22! I guess I don't know Tora3 as well as I thought. Missed the change in the opening credits. Great input on a great film. The Emperor's Palace scene I could understand, but the the carrier dateline scene doesn't help the story too much.
Jerry

catch 22 · **Posted:** Mon Dec 10, 2012 12:10 pm

Jerry O'Neill wrote:

Thanks Catch-22! I guess I don't know Tora3 as well as I thought. Missed the change in the opening credits. Great input on a great film. The Emperor's Palace scene I could understand, but the the carrier dateline scene doesn't help the story too much.
Jerry

Jerry, you're welcome!
I came across the above mentioned site when looking for similar information about extended versions. At a first glance this was not the desired place, u-u-m...you know what I mean, but later I found it is indeed a good source, no matter what's the first impression.
Cheers!

aerovin · **Posted:** Mon Dec 10, 2012 12:39 pm

Jerry O'Neill wrote:

As I recall, I thought the wheels up B-17 was the B-17 known as "The Batmobile" which was lost in a crash in the 1970's.

For what it is worth, Batmobile was N66573 (s/n 42-102715) due to its unusual paint scheme (seen on pp. 42-43 of 4th Edition of Final Cut) and operated as an air tanker by Black Hills Aviation. Not used in Tora Tora Tora. The B-17s used for filming of Tora Tora Tora were all Aircraft Specialties tankers: N17W, N620L, N621L, N3193G, and N9563Z.

JohnCFord · **Posted:** Mon Dec 10, 2012 12:55 pm

hang the expense wrote:

JohnB wrote:

I saw part of it last night on TV.

It had been a few years and I was really inpressed with the P-40 aerial combat shots. Very well done (especially after the Pearl Harbor & Red Tails GCI cartoons).

You win the pony for the very best description of those two ah movies. :drink3:

Copy that. I watched Tora Tora Tora Friday morning on NetFlix in remembrance of that event. I saw darn near nothing on any of the news networks about Pearl Harbor Day.

~J~

Chris Brame · **Posted:** Mon Dec 10, 2012 5:37 pm

I mentioned this in some other thread that the Search feature missed, but the older cook was played by Kiyoshi Atsumi - better-known for playing the main character in a long-running series of popular Japanese films.
His character's name? Tora-san. :lol:

JDK · **Posted:** Mon Dec 10, 2012 5:42 pm

JohnCFord wrote:

Copy that. I watched Tora Tora Tora Friday morning on NetFlix in remembrance of that event. I saw darn near nothing on any of the news networks about Pearl Harbor Day.

I would imaging that news editors felt it had been done sufficiently last year, on the 70th anniversary. Obviously it's recognised many here would disagree.

Regards,

Towpilot · **Posted:** Sat Dec 29, 2012 9:07 pm

seabee1526 wrote:

maxum96 wrote:

Chappie wrote:

Love the one-wheeled B-17 coming through the smoke,

That was not intended to be part of the movie. The gear stuck in the up position and the director told the pilot to keep circling while cameras were set up. Once they were ready they told him to bring it in and the rest is on film.

I believe that is the Yankee Lady.

The confusion about which airplane that actually did the one-wheel landing is probably because it's in fact two different B-17 involved in this now classic scene. The B-17 ending up with some bend metal on its right side did not, as the legend tells, hold by order of the director before they landed! The ground-loop was shot with a 16 mm camera by some one else but the film crew. This is why the picture is so much more grainy when the wing comes down. The B-17 coming through the smoke with the right wheel up is another one just doing a touch-and-go on one wheel! That scene was shot a day or two after the actual "crash landing"! If I remember correct, it's not even the same crew flying. It's all about the magic of film editing! This was all described in a "On location...." feature in the American Cinematographer Magazine that came out about the same time as the movie.

SaxMan · **Posted:** Sun Dec 30, 2012 9:25 am

Towpilot wrote:

The confusion about which airplane that actually did the one-wheel landing is probably because it's in fact two different B-17 involved in this now classic scene. The B-17 ending up with some bend metal on its right side did not, as the legend tells, hold by order of the director before they landed! The ground-loop was shot with a 16 mm camera by some one else but the film crew. This is why the picture is so much more grainy when the wing comes down. The B-17 coming through the smoke with the right wheel up is another one just doing a touch-and-go on one wheel! That scene was shot a day or two after the actual "crash landing"! If I remember correct, it's not even the same crew flying. It's all about the magic of film editing! This was all described in a "On location...." feature in the American Cinematographer Magazine that came out about the same time as the movie.

You definitely can tell the disparity of film quality between the 16mm footage and the 35mm one. To me, the 16mm footage gave the ground loop the "archival footage" quality, to the point where I thought it actually was archival footage...until I purchased my copy of "The Final Cut".

Steve Nelson · **Posted:** Sun Dec 30, 2012 2:35 pm

When I used to watch the movie as a kid, I also always assumed the one-wheel landing shot was archival footage due to the quality. As I learned more, I was baffled by the fact that the plane appeared to be a G-model with pre-war markings (and a cargo door.) It wasn't until I read the real story that everything finally made sense.

SN

Chris Brame · **Posted:** Sun Dec 30, 2012 3:51 pm

That's a surprise to me - the B-17 in the aerial and touchdown shots sure seems to match the plane in the landing shot; check out the last three images here:

http://www.aerovintage.com/tora.htm

Note how all of N621L's nose windows are removed and the position of the pitot tube(?) on the side of the nose. I also figured that the reason the film of the landing was grainier was that it was enlarged to crop out the background. If that was 16mm, whoever shot it at least was using a tripod as the image wasn't shaky; plus the image would have been cropped top and bottom anyway to match the widescreen 35mm film.

One thing I've always wondered: How do you crank down only one wheel on a B-17? Doesn't one lever drop both wheels?

bombadier29 · **Joined:** Sun Jan 29, 2012 9:17 pm **Posts:** 272

Chris Brame wrote:

One thing I've always wondered: How do you crank down only one wheel on a B-17? Doesn't one lever drop both wheels?

It's actually a toggle switch, not a lever. When you crank the gear down manually you do one wheel at a time.

Gjsanchez7 · **Joined:** Thu Jun 23, 2016 9:28 pm **Posts:** 2

From what I understand N620L was the actual plane that crashed in Tora, Tora, Tora. The approach was reshot with N621. N620L was later converted to a fire tanker and crashed near Elko, Nevada. July 12, 1973. My Uncle David A. Poindexter was the co-pilot.

Robbie Stuart · **Posted:** Fri Jun 24, 2016 8:08 am

bombadier29 wrote:

Chris Brame wrote:

One thing I've always wondered: How do you crank down only one wheel on a B-17? Doesn't one lever drop both wheels?

It's actually a toggle switch, not a lever. When you crank the gear down manually you do one wheel at a time.

You use a big hand crank. I did it once many moons ago at an airshow in New Iberia LA. with Van Skiles, & J.K. West flying in "Texas Raiders". :shock:

Robbie

Neal Nurmi · **Posted:** Fri Jun 24, 2016 10:10 am

Nathan · **Posted:** Fri Jun 24, 2016 10:21 pm

Thank God they put hand cranks in the B-17s!

On a side note about extended version-I saw an extended version of the P-40 dogfight I had never seen before but only saw once! Does anyone know what Im talking about?

Same thing with Midway. I remember as a kid they showed parts of the Coral Sea battle, but after that never saw it again! :shock:

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