Aviation movies on TCM for May 2013

[Chris Brame]

Antenna TV's website lists its NC affiliates as WJZY, WGHP, and WNCN. Can you pick up any of them locally?

[Rajay]

Hmmm...WNCN Channel 17 is the local NBC affiliate here in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill "Triangle" market and it is carried on my Dish system. WGHP is Channel 8 in the Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point (i.e. "Triad") market just to the west of me. Not sure about WJZY at all - could be the Charlotte area, Asheville, Wilmington, or some other distant part of the state.

I didn't realize that "Antenna TV" was an actual network affiliation of any kind; I have never heard of it before and I assumed that it was just your colloquialism for a non-cable or non-satellite, still actually “broadcast” (and therefore only “local”) television station. Please forgive me.

[bdk]

Looks like Antenna TV is Time Warner channel 139 and broadcast TV 5.2. I've DVR'd that movie, thanks!

[Chris Brame]

I saw Sky Commando last night; there are some howlers... Opening scenes over Korea have footage of an RF-80 and an F-86; the process closeups are of an F-80 fuselage with a fake-looking windscreen and maybe a real canopy. The data block IDs it as F-80B-1-LO 45-8557; directly below that is "U.S. Navy Serial No. 29690". Baugher's listing does show this one as being transferred to the Navy as a TO-1. The cockpit process shots show a model F-86 in the background with the fuselage star-and-bar upside down. The model MiG-15s at least have the red star right side up.

Most of the action is a flashback involving B-25 recon ships, although there is footage of B-17s and 24s mixed with it. The only plane I'm sure they used with the actors on location was an unmarked A-20G which I believe was N67971. There are some ground shots of a B-25 which don't look like combat footage; it had some nearly-illegible nose art ("A??? L??? S???" and below that "??SE IT IS"). The cockpit and fuselage shots were inside a Martin B-26; later in the movie when Dan Duryea and Touch Conners (aka Mike Connors) are flying a B-24, the set decorator just added two more levers to the side of the throttle quadrant. The last B-24 raid is (mostly Ploesti) stock footage and lots of it, including a formation of C-47s at one point. Some of the B-24s taking off are Liberandos, The Duchess (lost over Germany) and Brewery Wagon (lost at Ploesti). They end up crash-landing their B-24, which is a model whose wings have a bad case of anhedral...

So, in other words, your typical '50s B war movie which you can fast-forward through to see the planes. If you want to see Dan Duryea in an airplane, watch Flight of the Phoenix instead.

[The Inspector]

Yeah, I kept checking on it too and figured that Dan Duryea must have needed to make a house payment. That barker ran as the third feature @ Drive-ins in the 50's/60's (kid's, ask you parents what a drive in was). If you watch this 'creation' plan ahead and have some Punkin pie ready later on in this Turkey and beware of the Tryptophan.
Forgot what a great movie 'Eight Iron Men'was.

[makin' boost]

I warmed up with the opening minutes of "Best years of our lives" then settled in for the triple play sequence of "Air Force", "Command Decision" and "God is my Co-Pilot".

Quite a nice way to spend a rainy Northwest Memorial Day evening.