The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress (1944) YIFY - Download Movie TORRENT

Reviewed by gavin6942 7 / 10

A Cool Inside Look at World War II

Documentary about the 25th and last bombing mission of a B17, the "Memphis Belle". The "Memphis Belle" took part in a great bombing raid on sub-pens in Wilhelmshaven, Germany. On their way they encountered heavy AA fire and interceptors.The 16 mm color film used did not include sound, and this was added later in Hollywood. The original crew, during their war bonds drive in the United States, made typical appropriate comments to each other while watching the silent movie in a studio. The result was difficult to distinguish from real combat recordings.Regarding Wilhelmshaven, two thirds of the town's buildings were destroyed during bombing by the Allies of World War II. That is pretty devastating. How much of that can be attributed to the Memphis Belle? While there is plenty of footage of World War II, this is an inside look that is rather atypical. A real crew in a real plane on a real mission. I find it especially interesting because one of the crew was from Green Bay, which is my general neighborhood.

Reviewed by st-shot 8 / 10

Flying Fortress Finale

William Wyler's Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress featuring rare color film of WW 2 is another outstanding Why We Fight Documentary showcasing a B-17 and it's crew on its final bombing run over Germany. In this brief doc Wyler not only captures some of the most harrowing air combat footage in history but also gives us an outstanding overview of what it takes to mount a bombing raid, recognizing the importance of all involved, the shared bond of a diverse group.Some of the outstanding camerawork in the tight confines of the fortress puts you in the waist gunner position with a Messerschmitt, guns blazing roars at you while ominous flak explodes around "Belle" the chaos verbalized over headsets.Well edited in displaying the might of the Allies and the stoic resolve and everyday courage of its military "Memphis Belle" is more than just propaganda and an outstanding document of WW2 but a gripping suspense with a lot more on the line than a fiction.

Reviewed by alice liddell 6 / 10

Hectoring, but beautiful.

The most interesting thing about this documentary is its inherent paradox. It is a look at a US air base in England, 1944; its preparations for and carrying out of a strike on a prime German economic base. This kind of event is a one-off, necessitating spontaneous film-making (you can't ask for another take). And yet the director is William Wyler. Wyler could be great, it is true, but he was one of the most rigid of filmmakers, with every scene so preprepared and exact that it was often difficult for it to breathe. He was a theatrical kind of director, favouring interior, static set-ups, often base on canoncial, or high-minded material (e.g. Emily Bronte, Henry James, 'Ben-Hur').Of course, like all documentaries, this film is heavily controlled, its 'reality' mediated by Wyler's craft, as well as the propaganda needs of the War Office. The film follows a very schematic script - preparations, attack, return - which reads more like a Hollywood treatment than the messy loose-ends of a war. Every event and 'actor' is shown to have a purpose, from the glamorous bombers to the lowly mechanics. Several scenes are obviously contrived ('real' people are terrible actors), and we are asked to believe that in the middle of a life-or-death dogfight, salty veterans wouldn't swear.The didactic narrator, a disembodied Voice of God in a very physical, corporeal conflict, gathers everything authoritively to himself - he tells us what we are seeing; he can inform us what the soldiers are saying; he explains tactics and motives, putting a relatively minor operation into the wider context of the US (definitely US!!) war effort. We are told, no less, what war is for. Images of brutal injury and death are not denied, but are appropriated for the optimistic project: we are tacitly asked to think of the greater good.So, over fifty years on, with a completely different world view, does this film have any value, or meaning for us? Oh yes. Turn the sound down. Marvel at the sheer FACT (not in a history book, or a film) of history in motion, before your very eyes. Mere statistics now walk and talk and smile like actual people. This not all. The aerial sequences are astoundingly beautiful. There is a remarkable purity of geometry to the air formations, making you think they were set up by Wyler. The film stock, neither Technicolour gloss, nor the vapidly clear image of modern film, gives a bleached, dream-like effect to the spectacle, making you forget that in a few moments these machines are going to murder women and children.There is also something curiously moving about the transition from the smooth, controllable base footage to the elliptical chaos of the bombing and subsequent dogfight. We are told at the beginning that much of this footage was lost because of over-exposure; its absence - making us confront in our much more potent imaginations what really happened - is a beautiful triumph of the power of imagery, editing and ellipsis (i.e. art) over the sterile, fascist hectoring of the narrator's words.

The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress

1944

Documentary / History / War

The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress

1944

Documentary / History / War

Please enable your VPΝ when downloading torrents

Plot summary

Director

Top cast

Tech specs

Movie Reviews

A Cool Inside Look at World War II

Flying Fortress Finale

Hectoring, but beautiful.

1 Comment