The Memphis Belle

Filmed in color, the Memphis Belle has long been held up as a "model" wartime documentary, in a terse, exciting 43 minutes, the film assembles footage from several allied bombing missions into one single representative flight of the famed Flying Fortress known as the Memphis Belle. Through both the crewmen and the filmmakers take considerable pride in the fact that the Belle has completed 25 successful missions, there's no phony heroism, no grandstanding, no flag-waving. As calm-voiced narrator Ed Kern explains, the Belle has a job to do, and it does it, and that's all. The danger facing these Flying Fortresses is underlined, but never over-emphasized, by brief glimpses of these doomed ships that didn't make it back. Memphis Belle was directed by William Wyler, who also flew several missions with the crew, manning the camera himself at considerable risk. The overall excellence of the Memphis Belle is even more obvious when compared to the hokey fictionalized 1990 movie version of the Belle's 25th mission.

Director: William Wyler
Director: Louis Hayward
Actor: Eugene Kern
Actor: Corp. John Beal
Actor: Capt. Robert K. Morgan
Actor: Capt. James A. Verenis
Actor: Sgt. Bob Hanson
Actor: Capt. Chuck Layton
Actor: Sgt. Harry Locke
Actor: Sgt. John P. Quinlan
Actor: Sgt. Cecil Scott
Actor: Capt. Vincent B. Evans
Actor: Sgt. Clarence E. Winchell