Memphis Belle movie- revisions?

That's an episode from Stephen Spielberg's "Amazing Stories" from around

1985. IIRC, the pilot of the B-17 was played by Kevin Costner. One landing gear is shot up and they can't get the Sperry ball gunner out. If they land wheels up, he's meat. When all attempts to get him free or get him a parachute fail, in despair, on final approach the cartoonist crewman fantasizes and draws a landing strut, that IIRC, was a giant candy cane with a donut on the end for the wheel/tire.

WmB

LOL That was the first episode of "Amazing Stories", starring Kevin Costner. :-D

on 12/14/2007 10:43 AM WmB said the following:

Yes. IIRC, the cartoonist was the Sperry ball gunner himself.

nodnodnod wot 'e sed! :-D

There was a funny scene where Costner went up to the wheel and poked it! Once all the crew were clear, the cartoonist (who had been the guy in the ball turret) stopped believing in the wheel and it vanished. The aircraft collapsed onto the deck, crushing the ball turret.

I believe there was a lot of inaccuracy in that. As far as I am aware, the ball turret was by far the strongest part of the aircraft and, far from being crushed in a belly landing, would have caused the aircraft to break its back. If the turret could not be retracted for a belly landing, procedure was to unscrew a *huge* nut secured the turret in its frame and jettison the turret over the sea.

On Dec > I believe there was a lot of inaccuracy in that. As far as I am aware, the

(hopefully the door to the turret was pointed in such a position to allow the gunner to get out first....)

maybe they could go in low and skip bomb the turret back to England. :-)

Craig

For those less fortunate, see below:

Gordon McLaughlin

on 12/14/2007 3:14 PM Gordon McLaughlin said the following:

I see a pic of a remote controlled nose turret and a British tail gun turret, but not a single picture of a ball turret.

That's from the pilot episode of Steven Spielberg's "Amazing Stories" TV series, not the movie.

Pat

That really sucked, just like that whole series.

Pat

We studied that poem back in some literature class in High School. Pretentious and silly little thing, isn't it?

Pat

Well it featured Kevin Costner, so that goes without saying.

IMHO, "Memphis Belle" was pretty bad too. Drug my girlfriend to see it - didn't blame her a bit when she dumped me later. ;-)

She makes me see "Fried Green Tomatoes" - surprisingly, a movie I really liked. I countered by dragging her to see "Memphis Belle". Thud!

She makes me see "A League of Their Own" - another great flick pick, of what is now one of my all ime favorite movies. I countered with "Basic Instinct" - yes, just for Sharon Stone's clam shot. Thud!

She makes me see "Wayne's World" I countered with "Star Trek VI: Undiscovered Country" OK, we kind of broke even on this one, but it was clear from that point on that we were incompatible.

WmB

"Dances With Focke-Wulfs"?

A very strange girl I knew took me to see the musical "Popeye". Around halfway through the movie I was called into lobby to take a urgent phone call from my father. My mother had just died instantly and completely quietly while sitting four feet from him watching TV. No greater love is there than a mother who would unhesitatingly lay down her life to rescue her son from watching a horrible movie with a crazy woman. Thanks ma! ;-)

Pat

on 12/14/2007 7:23 PM WmB said the following:

I have the William Wyler documentary "The Memphis Belle" on VHS. Even then, the last mission of the Belle was a 'milk run', so they had to throw in some other aerial fight scenes. Wyler lost one of his cameramen who was on another B-17 that was shot down during the filming.

Yee-ouch!

WmB

If you find it, I'm curious to see how my memory is doing - wasn't there a scene where the guys topside reach a point where they decide shooting the guy is preferable to him suffering the fate of a crashed landing. In my mind I can see the senior NCO creeping up on the hatch to the ball turret with a .45, before he thinks better of it.

WmB

Pat Flannery wrote: : : That's from the pilot episode of Steven Spielberg's "Amazing Stories" TV : series, not the movie. : The best part to "Amazing Stories" is that the opening animation was rendered on the hardware of the company that I was working for - Gould PowerNode 9000.

Impressive for the time. Now, just so much scrap.

Bruce

She'd had a heart attack around a month before, and was awaiting bypass surgery, which of course made her very apprehensive, and probably led directly to the second heart attack. If you're going to go, then at least go very quick and painlessly. And her timing was impeccable, because that movie really sucked from the part I saw of it.

Pat

Up till that completely goofy last scene, it was a very good story. It's like people are disappering off Martha's Vineyard after a giant "something" is seen in the area, and so the "Orca" sets out to kill it. But they find it's not a shark....but rather Cecil, The Seasick Sea Serpent... and the people aren't dead at all...Cecil has taken them to a wonderful undersea cave where they eat ice cream and candy canes all day. Then Cecil pulls the Orca back to Martha's Vineyard, and gives all the children rides on his back*. Remember Spielberg's "Taken"? He did the same thing that time. "The aliens are evil! The aliens are dangerous! No!....the aliens jus' wanna' be ouw friends....the po' wittle aliens! They can't wuv things wike we do." This is the cinematic equivalent of kicking at that football Peanut's Lucy is holding ready, time after time, year after year.

• (Soon, we shall see a movie very much like this concept, except this time you'll see the cuteness coming from frame one, so at least it'll be honest:
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  if it had been me writing that alternate "Jaws" script, they wouldn't realize that Cecil was a _female_ sea serpent, and that ice cream had tiny eggs in it. Eggs that would hatch in about a month, and then the larva would begin consuming the people from inside, like in "Alien". Soon the sea off Martha's Vineyard would be thick with "Cecils", as desiccated corpses, riddled with holes from the emerging larva lay thick on the beach like worm-infested driftwood...and they'd have to bring in the navy with nuclear tipped ASROCS. See, this should be the scene where the Water Horse eats the kid; snarfs him down like a candy bar.
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  you imagine the effect on the little tikes in the audience when that happens? That'll give them a real ass-kick into today's reality, pronto! :-)

Pat