Flying Fortress

Routine script, cardboard performances and a plot that is almost invisible gives one no excuse for recommending this RAF aviation drama of wartime England.

Dimpled matinée idol RICHARD GREENE is incapable of stirring up any interest in what little plot there is. He's not entirely to blame since his role is extremely underwritten and devoid of any character. For those fascinated by glimpses of the Flying Fortresses in action, so be it. Actual bombing footage is about all the film offers in the way of any visual excitement.

This is no more than a shabby programmer masquerading as an A movie at a time when these sort of stories about aviators on bombing missions over Germany were done with much more style and attention to detailed performances. None of the characters are anyone you could care about.

The romance is clumsily handled and except for a few scenes of an actual bombing mission at the end, there is nothing to distinguish it from dozens of other routine service films.

As a drama dealing with the RAF, it is inept and weak in characters and plot line.

This movie is a mixture of the B-17 Flying Fortress, an inane class struggle, and superficial love interests. The are some exceptional scenes of the damage caused during the first London blitz of World War Two, yet little more of interest. The real star of the film is the B-17, with a typical bombing raid over Berlin, a propaganda target for 1942. It is an interesting docudrama of the early B-17's use during the war, so early that the navigator uses celestial fixes. Don't bail out on this movie without seeing it first.