My suggestion for the first movie night is the 1965 movie Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines . The show is a rather broad comedy/ farce involving a mythical air race from London to Paris in 1910. Filmed on location in England and France it includes a lot of great scenery and some really funny slapstick comedy.
This show has more airplane scenes in it than any other movie that I know of. Twenty two visually authentic replica aircraft were built which represent most of the world’s collection of aircraft of the time. A half dozen of these replica planes were airworthy and flown to film the race scenes. For the car fan there are some very rare Rolls-Royce, Mercedes and Renault automobiles of the early 20th century.
The movie was one of the big budget movies of it’s time and was one of the first filmed in the 70mm Todd-AO system with multi channel sound. It is a little longer than most movies; the running time is 137 minuets which includes a ten minuet intermission.
It is a very entertaining family film – I have a copy on DVD.
Other aviation themed movies that I have on DVD are:
Pearl Harbor
Flight Plan
Black Sunday
Hells Angels *
Flight of the Phoenix (original version) *
Flight of the Phoenix (remake)
Battle of Britain *
633 Squadron *
Flyboys
Blue Max
The High and The Mighty **
Island in the Sky **
Flying Tigers
The Aviator
In addition I have most of the recent AirVenture videos.
Some of these would be good for our movie night. I have marked them with an asterisk.
I also have some aviation movies on VHS including the original documentary Memphis Belle.
The March 2010 issue of Aviation History Magazine has an article on the best and worst flying movies.
The editor’s choices for the best are:
1. Those Magnificent Men and their Flying Machines (1965)
2. 2. Twelve O’clock High (1949)
3. Wings (1927)
4. Hell’s Angels (1930)
5. Strategic Air Command (1955)
6. The Blue Max (1966)
7. Battle of Britain (1969)
8. The Dam busters (1955) and 633 Squadron (1964)
9. The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954)
10. The High and the Mighty (1954)
They picked as the worst:
1. Top Gun (1966)
2. Firefox (1982)
3. Jet Pilot (1957)
4. Stealth (2005)
5. Midway (1976)
6. Memphis Belle (1990)
7. Snakes on a Plane (2006)
8. Lafayette Escadrille (1958)
9. Iron Eagle (1986) and its three sequels
10. Pearl Harbor (2001)
This listing of the best and worst is, of course, one man’s opinion, but it might give us some ideas.
Dennis Crispin
