Thunderbolt (1947)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Directors:

John Sturges
William Wyler

Writer:

Lester Koenig (writer)

Genre:

Documentary | Short | War

Plot:

A documentary on the P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft and its use in missions over Europe and the Pacific Theatre in the Second World War.

Plot Keywords:

Airplane

Cast

James Stewart	...	Himself
Lloyd Bridges	...	Voice of the Pilot
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Robert Lowery	...	Narrator

Runtime:

44 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

Corsica, France

Company:

Carl Krueger Productions

Trivia:

Filmed in 1945, not released until 1947.

Good WW2

Thunderbolt (1947)

*** (out of 4)

WW2 documentary directed by John Sturges and William Wyler with an added introduction from James Stewart. The documentary covers the P-47 Thunderbolt pilots whose mission was to knock out all the train tracks and bridges throughout Corsica, Italy so that the German's couldn't get any supplies. Sturges and Wyler put twelve different cameras on the planes so there's a lot of terrific ariel footage of the bombings, which is quite impressive. I don't think the documentary plays out too well today because we see things getting bombed even though the pilots aren't sure if it's the Germans or perhaps civilians. There's also some footage of what the pilots do when they're not working but the documentary ends on a downnote as some of the men in the crew never made it back home. The film's biggest problem is the narration, which is so slow that it can't keep up with all the action going on in the movie. Lloyd Bridges provides the voice of one of the pilots.