OT: Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo on DVD - Finally

On Jan 12, 1:42=EF=BF=BDam, " snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net" wrot= e:

Don't get your hopes up. The mission footage is fine, but the rest of it is "Our Friends the Nationalist Chinese". No opportunity is wasted to give a lecture on the nobility of Chang Kai Shek.

Your comment may well be true, Tom, I haven't seen the movie in years so I don't remember that part of it.

You should also remember, however, the time during which the movie was made. I was there and I remember it quite well - the Chinese were "good guys," the Russians were "good guys," the Italians were "bad guys," etc. - it was all very cut and dried. Even those countries against which we weren't even facing off were categorized. The Hungarians, for example, were "bad guys" because they were fighting with the Germans against the Russians ("good guys").

So you're probably correct; every opportunity to laud the "good guys" would be taken, while every opportunity to belittle the "bad guys" would also be taken.

Andy

True, but there are more dramatic ways to show it than by getting lectured every five minutes.

maybe, but in 1944 that is the way these movies were done. gotta take that into consideration.

Craig

it's easy to forget the polarization that existed then. i remember knuckleheads who would flip out if you expressed any doubt about the west and showed any appreciation of the east. don't forget the fall-out from the mcarthy era, too. both sides did a lot of chest thumping and showed a lot of intolerance. sometimes when i remember the 50's-early 60's, it seems like a different universe women friends express a lot of bitterness for that time also. which i can't blame them for..

oops. well, even pre mcarthy was pretty damn hard line.

you want some heavy WWII dialog, rent "The Purple Heart" with Dana Andrews. Way over the top.

Craig

There's always the last part of "Pearl Harbor" for the definitive telling of "Doolittle's Raid" :^)

WmB

almost unwatchable.

if you mean the new one, that trailer of the bomb falling turned me right off.

It's a complete POS movie, but it just so happens to be airing on ABC right this minute - and on the Doolittle Raid. Hollywood fantasy of the worst kind.

WmB

i guess i don't have a strong enough stomach.

And the Japanese were barely human at best. :-) Remember the scene in that movie where the put the captured B-25 crewmember on the stretcher with "Donated By The United States For Earthquake Relief" printed on it? Here, Mr. Moto seeks revenge on the U.S. for the Dolittle raid:

sneaking the Akagi around South America with the Nells aboard is going to be tricky, but who knows what the wily Jap has up his sleeve? Hey Bruiser, what do think of that Moto Guy?: "GRRRR!" :-P

Pat

I once read a review of that film that pointed out that it was apparently possible to get on a train in NYC and step out of it in London. Another comment on it was: "Those poor Pearl Harbor veterans....now they've been bombed twice." :-D

Pat

Is it "God Is My Co-Pilot" that has the three Japanese pilots in it, one of which has buck teeth, another one of which wears round glasses, and the third of which went to college in the US and harangues the P-40 pilots over the radio as he's about to shoot them down with: "Hey American...here comes all that scrap metal you sent us."? Meanwhile, a warning to American modelers. A recent Tokyo IPMS group-build project meeting:

"Okay, who can turn out a Zero the fastest?" ;-)

Pat

Then you'll miss the scene of FDR tap-dancing on the table-top...it's pure genius. I'll tell you one thing, if we really had had Aegis class destroyers at Pearl Harbor, things might have turned out differently. They could have at least taken the side nose guns off the B-25s. That was just plain sloppy on their part.

Pat

"CAN YOU SMELL WHAT THE PREZ IS COOKIN'?"

On Jan 12, 8:29=EF=BF=BDpm, " snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net" wrot= e:

It's just that I got done watching the exact opposite of some of the movies being talked about here: "The Bridges at Toko-Ri" Better aerial footage, better and more honest storytelling.

i've completely given up on tv and movie "drama". the stupid 24-csi shit and the pearl harbor movies make me want to blow chunks. if it wasn't for stupid funny movies and anime, i'd read 18 hours a day instead of 6.