Fighter Squadron (1948)

good back-story, and good acting

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

After WW2 there were thousands of tons of unused war fighting material and equipment that were dumped on the civilian market as war surplus, at bargain basement prices, just to get rid of it.I guess the Warner Brothers wartime propaganda film machine had exactly the same problem... they had tons of perfectly good, unused clichés that they didn't need anymore because the war had ended. So they wrapped them all up and dropped them like a huge blockbuster bomb into the script of FIGHTER SQUADRON, in one last explosion of silver screen bravado! Somehow I get the feeling that this barrage of badinage was something that they'd had left over from that other great collection of wartime wisecracking, GOD IS MY COPILOT. Tokyo Joe and Colonel Robert Scott hadn't used 'em all up, and this stuff had a definite shelf life... so it was a case of Use it or Lose it.The flying sequences are first rate... much of it is actual combat footage and gun camera film, liberally supplemented by footage of postwar Air National Guard pilots flying their beloved Jugs for one last orgasm of wartime glory before the cameras.As somebody else pointed out, you'll never see that many Thunderbolts in the air again. For aviation buffs like me, that's a saving virtue... the P-47 was a hell of a fighter plane design which, in my opinion, was robbed of it's share of recognition by the much more flashy (but also quite capable) P51 Mustang.There's no need to yet again go into the Whys and Wherefores of the "Messerschmidts" that came rolling off of North American's P-51D assembly lines. Those California Air National Guard flown Bad Guys can take their place in cinematic history alongside the British built Hawker Hurricane that ALSO played the part of a Messerschmidt in Jimmy Cagney's CAPTAINS OF THE CLOUDS... a film which, by the way, was ANOTHER Warner Brothers firing range for unloosing tons of large caliber clichés.The music in FIGHTER SQUADRON is also a collection of beloved wartime leftovers.The film's main musical theme was recycled from the Erroll Flynn/Fred MacMurray prewar epic DIVE BOMBER. During the sequence where the Thunderbolts supplied ground support for the Omaha Beach invasion forces, the theme music for the ground troops was lifted directly from the "Over the Top" sequence in Gary Cooper's SERGEANT YORK! The film's plot and subplots are, to say the least, weak... the script is another Clearance Sale of hackneyed plot devices that had to be used up before they turned rancid on the shelf.The result of all of this is a film that's something of a parody. I would have expected better of Raoul Walsh, but His was not to Reason Why.FIGHTER SQUADRON is a lot of fun to watch, especially if you've got a couple of cold beers handy, if you can turn off reason and reality for the duration. Suspension of Disbelief is is the order of the day.Just view this one as Hollywood's Postwar Victory Lap.

This movie gets better with time. Some of the best flying shots of the P-47 Thunderbolt. Most of the action segments must have used available planes (P-47); it was only 3 years after the end of the war, and there were plenty of Thunderbolts in top flying condition. To the credit of the film's producers, some of the air combat scenes used actual footage shot with "gun cameras' on Thunderbolts. This is clearly seen where ground targets , such as trains, are being strafed.Although the German fighters are clearly P-51's (with Luftwaffe markings), and not ME 109's, there were probably very few flyable Nazi combat aircraft of any type in 1948. This was decades before CGI!

With all the comments about Teutonic Mustangs, there should probably be some clarification. Obviously, in postwar America, we didn't have a plethora of captured MEs and FWs to operate - there were sufficient times when Mustangs were mistaken for ME-109s by gunners in the bomber formations that Hollywood's use of P-51s is forgivable. For the record: The "Luftwaffe" P-51s were from the CA ANG unit at Van Nuys; the P-47Ds were from an east coast ANG squadron. The film was shot primarily at Oscoda Army Air Field, Michigan (eventually re-named Wurtsmith AFB), with the grand finale airfield strafing sequence shot at Van Nuys. The belly tanks for one pivotal scene (jettisoned in defiance of orders to "stay with the bombers") had to be scrounged from a variety of surplus locations - hard to believe, considering just 3 short years earlier there had been in mass production. The aircraft carry 9th AF unit markings to match the only extensive color P-47 footage shot during WWII.For all this effort, the plot line is still reminiscent of most prewar or WWII-era "gung ho" propaganda films - right down to the recycling of the musical score from Errol Flynn's "Dive Bomber" (if I'm lying, I'm dying). All the hokey subplots are best enjoyed either with a case of your favorite adult beverage, or with the "mute" button activated - or both. Enjoy the airplanes, because you'll never see that many Thunderbolts in the air again.In the DVD-VHS department, I get the feeling the film is owned by Turner/TCM, as that's the only channel where I've ever seen it aired. You might try schmoozing Ted Turner to get him to release it...

I have seen this movie two times on late night TV and have enjoyed as much as 12 O'clock High. Although some critics may say it's superficial and more action oriented than 12 O'clock, I think it represents a needed aspect of the WWII air-war. Some parts are taken from actual incidents, like the rescue of a downed fellow pilot by another pilot by landing in a field and picking him up in enemy held territory. P-47 Thunderbolts with drop tanks were used to escort allied bombers until the long range P-51 became available. It is ironic that after the war the air force got rid of the P-47 in favor of the P-51 and that during the Korean war the P-51 suffered high casualties because they were used in a ground attack role in which the P-47 were much more suited. I do hope they come out with it on DVD soon.