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Films with aircraft theame


agripper

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Been trying to find a copy of an old film. I think it was made in either the later 70's or early 80's. F|ilm by by the name of "Soul survivor" it was loosly based on the story of the B24 liberator "Lady be Good" which went down in the libian desert after a raid when the crew got lost. The story is about the crew who are all around the remains of there crashed B25 , they think they are still alive and awaiting rescue.

Does anyone remember this film and alsl know where I might get a copy. Have tried amazon and play.com but get a more modern film. There has to be a lot of other aviation based films with the remains old war birds. There was one I have seen resently on Sky which shows the remains of a B25 but not sure if a film prop or the real thing.

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Yes I remember the film - it featured a B-25 in the remake.

 

Cant for the life of me remember what it was called - try looking or searching horror Genre, rather than War, because I believe it ends with the revelation that all the characters are in fact ghosts.

I think I remember that they all hang around the plane wreck - but gradually they dissapear one by one. they are dissapearing as their 'real' bodies are found. The one guy that does not dissapear but is condemned to an eternity alone at the crash site is the tail gunner - because his body is never found. It remained hidden and buried under the tail section.

 

...............er yeah, I think thats the one.

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or this ...Most likely the "film" you have in mind is Bomber's Moon. A Playhouse 90 production that was directed by John Frankenheimer, written by Rod Serling and featured Martin Balsam, Robert Cummings, Cliff Robertson, Rip Torn among others. It was filmed in 1958 around an actual wrecked B-25 in the Mojave Desert. A complete work of fiction it was however "inspired" by the then recent discovery of a B-24 wreck from WWII. Found in the Africa desert, the crew lost its way returning from a night mission. One by one, all of the crew bailed out right before the plane ran out of fuel. A crewman's diary related a chilling story of their vain attempts to survive the Sahara

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Sole Survivor

CBS’ first made-for-TV movie, Sole Survivor is a fantasy yarn founded on fact. In 1960, the ruins of an American bomber were found in the Libyan desert...but the remains of the crew were never located. In Guerdon Trueblood’s teleplay, the ghosts of a bomber crew hang around their derelict plane, awaiting the day that their bones will be recovered and given a decent burial. The sole survivor, navigator Russell Hamner (Richard Basehart), has in the intervening 25 years become a general. He joins an investigation team that has come across the wreckage, while the ghosts, headed by Major Devlin (Vince Edwards), plot to expose Hamner as a coward who deserted his post and left his crew mates to die.

Also starring 5 Minutes to Live favorite William Shatner!

solesurvivor.jpg

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The Lady be good was indeed wrecked in the desert and they mistoke the desert for sea because it was night.

All but 1 body was found.

 

I read it in a then and now from 1981 ish (still have it).

They found a journal on 1 of the bodies describing their ordeal.

It allways makes me sad when I think about it.

Would make a tragic movie if they filed it as it happened and not "inspired by bla bla).

I allready see the final scene in my mids eye...

Camera on the last man, camera zooms out reavealing a vast sand desert....

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The B-25 in 'Sole Survivor' was a real aircraft, carfully dismantled and posed in an almost identical position as B-24 'Lady Be Good'. After the filming, it was displayed at Buena Park, California. The plane was broken up in the early 1970's although some parts may survive at Planes of Fame, Chino, CA.

 

B-24 'Lady Be Good' was recovered from the desert by the Libyans and there are now plans for a Warfare Museum in which 'Lady Be Good' will be displayed.

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  • 1 year later...

The last image I saw of the LBG was a sad few scraps of metal , just barely aircraft shaped , not even sure what part of the aircraft it was , this was in the last week or two ,not sure where I came across the photo . the only bits of it that exist intact are at the Wright Patterson Museum

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