The Cold Blue

Frankly, I often just listen to many docs as the background while commuting or doing chores. This movie disallows you to do that, both for the respect and empathy for guys and for the video and information load the movie is charged with. Atomizing the endevour in chapters is very useful as they get embedded into memory. Fume tales from engines warning Nazis 50 miles ahead the formation is approaching. The code of Americans flying in daylight (why? never gets explained here but you could find an explanation elsewhere) while Brits did it at night. FLAK mortal danger. Red flares on airfield approach signalling there is a wounded serviceman aboard. Frostbite as flying fortresses have not been pressurized. And ever increasing number of missions which sends you back to Catch 22. In a somewhat weird way, this two great movies - Cold Blue and Catch-22 - get intrinsically intertwined.

It was a surprise to see that William Wyler (Roman Holiday, Ben-Hur, Funny Girl) accompanied the US air force on a mission and got to film them in action. Must've been quite the exhilarating experience.

One thing that caught my attention was the part about their superiors raising the number of missions that they had to carry out. It reminded me of "Catch-22" (wherein the superiors keep ordering the pilots to fly more and more missions).

Anyway, "The Cold Blue" is a good documentary. A story like you can't imagine.

We owe so much to these boys plucked from farms, shops, and their homes to fight Hitler in Europe in 1942. These boys left home, some of them not yet 20 years old. Fighting cold, German fighters, and fear of not coming home at the end of a mission, they were the 8th Air Force flying daylight bombing missions against the German fatherland. Flying 5 hours there and 5 back while flying thru German fighters and flak to lay a few bombs on a target they may had hit the day before and the day before that too. Sometimes barely making it home with only part of a tail or on 3 engines to land and have their ground crews patch them up for the next mission. So proud of these teenagers and early 20's boys forced to grow up too fast and too early in a war they didn't start or want either.

A fantastic tribute to all the brave and heroic men of the 8th Air Force. I would also recommend watching the History Channel Air War.

The amount of painstaking effort put into restoring this film is evident. Seeing these very old images in colour adds another dimension to it. My only beef; why do filmmakers still insist on using the Stuka sound effect? The original footage has no audio so sound effects are added. The Stuka sound effect (like the rifle bullet ricochet sound) is one of the most over-used sound effects in film history. I wish they hadn't used it in this film and gone for a more realistic approach. Otherwise, I quite enjoyed this film.