Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Air Force


Resurrected from my lost youtube collection. In my opinion, one of the best WW2 movies ever, with two sons of the Lower East Side; John Garfield (Julius Garfinkle)who was born on the LES and later moved to Brownsville and then the Bronx. Also George Tobias, born Abner Kravitz in 1901. from wikipedia:
Air Force is a 1943 Academy-Award-winning movie directed by Howard Hawks. It starred John Garfield, John Ridgely, Harry Carey, George Tobias, Gig Young and James Brown (later famous as Lieut Rip Masters on Rin Tin tin
The film details the story the crew of the Mary-Ann, a B-17 bomber, in the early days of World War II. It begins with a flight from California to Hickam Field at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, beginning on December 6, 1941. The unarmed B-17 squadron arrived right at the beginning of the Japanese attack (This really happened; radar operators thought the Japanese planes they detected was the incoming flight of B-17s). It portrays John Garfield as a disaffected gunner who was washed out of flight school after a mid-air collision where another pilot was killed. Harry Caray has a very effective role as the Mary-Ann's crew chief and a long time veteran in the Army Air Corps with a son who is a pilot. Made in the early days of World War II, there is quite a bit of anti-Japanese propaganda. The crew is shot at by "local Japanese" on Maui and the Hickam Field. Their commander tells the crew that vegetable trucks knocked the tails off a row of P-40 Warhawk fighters as the attack began. As detailed in Walter Lord's book, Day of Infamy, later investigations proved no Japanese-American was involved in any sabotage during the Pearl Harbor attack.
In this heart wrenching scene, the crew says their goodbye to their mortally injured Captain.

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