1000 aquile su Kreistag

World War Two had many facets which claim to have been the pivotal point of the conflict. Regardless, it took the whole industry of several countries to group themselves into the Allied cause, which eventually destroyed the Nazi dream of world dominance. This is one of the key elements which was essential towards that goal. The film is called " The Thousand Plane Raid " which was directed by Boris Sagal and penned by novelist Ralph Barker. It purports to tell the story of Col. Greg Brandon (Christopher George) who proposed to group together a thousand allied B-17 Bombers to destroy a specific target producing German fighter planes. He finds that he is troubled by both the British high command as well as his own men. In addition, those closest to him realize that he is obsessed with his idea and is losing touch with everyone. A good movie, though a bit melodramatic. Nevertheless, a solid action oriented story. A fine cast which includes J.D. Cannon, Gary Marshal, Michael Evans, Gavin MacLeod and Bo Hopkins as Capt. Douglass. Recommended to War buffs. ****

Just saw this 36 year old movie on a Spanish T.V. channel.It was a midnight movie and it's dubbed in Spanish. This movie is very and I mean very cheaply made. It looks more like a made for T.V. movie. However, it was made in 1969 and most likely it was riding on the coat-tails of such films as Battle for Britan or Operation Crossbow. I like Christopher George, but the poor guy just wasn't given any decent acting roles. I feel his "meatiest" role was that of gunman Nelson McCloud in the John Wayne movie, El Dorado. Sadly, Christopher George died of a massive heart attack at 54, and is best remembered for his hit 1960s T.V. show, The Rat Patrol. As for this film, well, it's better in Spanish! Only thing, I don't speak Spanish!

If you want to watch real WW2 planes in real WW2 footage, this is a good movie. You won't see these beautiful planes flying again without CGI. The movie gives a pretty accurate depiction on life aboard a WW2 bomber. Movies today will have to use CGI to show these beautiful planes. Sadly, there are too few of these aircraft available today to duplicate the airplanes in this movie. Appreciate these beautiful airplanes and the bravery of the young pilots and crew that were able to keep these beautiful airplanes flying.

Pretty good movie that uses real WW2 footage and new footage.

The acting is okay with a pretty good cast.

This is very much like "The War Lover" with Steve McQueen 10 years earlier in black-and-white, it is basically the same story, but that film was humanly so much more interesting. This is in colour, and although Christopher George is very much like Steve McQueen, almost like a twin character, he is grimmer, harder and more superficial - the McQueen character has an abyss of depth in its psychopathic possibilities, while Christopher George is only doing his job. Both died too young, by the way, Steve McQueen at 50 and Christopher George at 54.

What saves the film are the other characters, first of all Gary Marshal, who adds a very needful sense of humour and detachment to the grim show, while colonel Brandon (George) has no humour at all and never smiles. The case of the grounded pilot Palmer (J.D.Cannon) also adds some interest to the epic, while on the whole, like as if it was made for television, this is clearly less realistic than the McQueen feature, which offers so much more human insight into the lives of the bomber pilots in this dreadful war. Here it more amounts to aerobatics and showing off. McQueen makes that showing off pathological, while here it is superficial.

Nevertheless, it's an interesting film, better than its reputation, awfully exciting and with splendid scenery of war pilot flights in the air and in action. The only disturbing thing was Laraine Stephens' hair style, a cold blonde with too much make-up for that war and a coiffure belonging entirely to the 60s.

I would say the best part of this movie is Gary Marshall as a British fighter pilot attached to an American bomber group for mysterious reasons... Christopher George is a professional scowler, and he is over the top as an hardass commander who cares so much he convinces everyone he doesn't care at all.

The low budget is almost tolerable except the over use of stock footage leads to major continuity errors, like when a b-17 crashes and they cut to a burning b-29 which looks nothing like the b-17. That was a bridge too far.

But I watched the whole movie which means it wasn't that bad... when I researched the topic turns out the British had already tried thousand bomber night missions prior to this so it wasn't a big deal and this is revisionist history. Oh well.