Warbird Information Exchange

Today's Los Angeles Times had a story about Bill Bonanno, son of Joe Bonanno, who has set up a film production company and one of its projects is "an action-adventure film called 'The Aztec Eagles', based on a real-life story about a squadron of Mexican fighter pilots who flew daring bombing missions for the Allies in the Pacific during World War II", to be written and directed by Betty Kaplan on a reported 3-to 4-million dollar budget Hmm. At that price, don't be surprised to see a run on Revell 1/32nd P-47 model kits...

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All right, Mister Dorfmann, start pullin'!
Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)

I just hope it won't be another 'Pearl Harbor' inspired, love story, CGI-filled, POS. My fingers are crossed that they will get it right with this one.... But I won't hold my breath. Jim

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Mustangs Rule!

ah men to that man!!! that pearl harbor pic was lame & down right sucko!! the 1970's original was a box office bomb, but i thought it was great & very realistic. mexican warbird pilots sounds like a great topic for a movie!!! definetely an obscure little known story. i know of it, but not in detail. i have for a long time been of the opinion that some ww 2 topics have been beaten into the ground a million + times. enough to put me to sleep!!!! there are so many untold stories waiting to be revealed. hollywood should be concentrating on these. as a freelance aviation history author this is where i have focused for years. regards, tom

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

I agree 100%, there are so many stories...great stories that would make an epic film. Some of the movies I'd like to see made.

1. The Battle off Samar during the Leyte Gulf Battle. Escort carriers versus Japanese Battleships...the ultimate David & Goliath story.
2. A movie concerning any of the exploits of the "Black Cat" PBYs
3. A movie dealing with the medium and/or light bomber groups in the ETO
4. The Siege of Malta. Another truly epic story. You could even use some of the stock footage from the "Battle of Britain" movie.

I could go on and on....so many great stories to tell...

With CGI technology, a lot of these movies considered impossible to shoot would be very possible. It would be nice if the guys doing the CGI could get the flight characteristics of airplanes down more accurately. In most movies where they use CGI, the prop-driven fighters end up having flight characteristics of modern day F-18s. Pearl Harbor, for instance, ended up looking like Independence Day, but they used P-40s instead of the aforementioned F-18s.

Hate to be a film critic, but a bunch of black PBYs flying at night doesn't sound too visually exciting...

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.

The battle off Samar would be great. They could use film from Midway/T-T-T/Pearl Harbor, ect. We could watch a guy fly 10 different planes on one mission and Japanese speaking the King's english.

Now, something akin to the battle for Guadalcanal with P-40s, F4Fs, SBDs, Zeros ect would be great and easlier to produce since it's land based.

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Don't touch my junk!!

I think that one was already done- and was fantastic. Catch-22!

A Movie based on the book "The Big E" would be the ultimate Pacific air war epic, seeing as the U.S.S Enterprise participated in almost every major campaign from Pearl Harbor to Okinawa.

Catch-22....How could have I forgotten.

I agree. It's a great movie. Alan Arkin's character was truly the precursor to Bruce Willis' movie characters. When I watched Catch-22 for the first time, I kept thinking "Man, this guy is just like Bruce Willis".

The rest of the cast was great, too.

I think the biggest problem is that you can't condense some of the stories in to a 2 hour movie. Some of these would probably be best told as a mini-series, or a multi-part series like "A Piece of Cake".