Thunderbolt

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.

This film is introduced by Jimmy Stewart and part of the narration is provided by Lloyd Bridges. It shows the duties of a fighter group-- P-47 pilots whose job it is to blow the crap out of railroads, roads and targets of opportunity in order to choke off supplies to German troops in Southern Italy.

"Thunderbolt" was made in 1944 or 1945 (the film says 1944 and IMDb says '45) but it wasn't released until 1947. You can actually tell it wasn't released during the war because some aspects of this documentary probably wouldn't have done a lot to stir up the folks at home with patriotic zeal. This is because the documentary shows a few things that might have discouraged the audiences--such as one of the American planes crashing and killing the pilot. Also, there were quite a few VERY grisly corpses--things that I doubt that they would have wanted to show civilians. For the most part, films shown to the public were pretty sanitized...and this one wasn't. Now this is NOT a complaint- -in fact it makes this a much better and more realistic film. My only complaint about the film is the terrible quality of all the color footage. It's very degraded and muddy and could use conservation.

Thunderbolt is a film by William Wyler that suffered basically the same fate as the Frank Capra film "Here Is Germany", meaning that it was released at a time when everyone was eager to forget world war 2. Originally recorded in 1944 during the allied campaign in italy, Thunderbolt is a kind of documentary that follows the US 12th Air Force and the methods they use to destroy nazi supply routes responsible for enforcing the Gustav Line and the city of Anzio. The Gustav Line was a series of defensive structures and machine gun nests built across italy by the germans in order to prevent american forces from moving north. This made it very difficult for the US forces to do anything because the mountainous spine that runs through the italian peninsula made a perfect natural defensive barrier. The film goes over one of the most effective weapons the americans had during the campaign in italy, which was the Republic p-47 Thunderbolt. When it first flew, the p-47 was the largest and heaviest single engined plane in the world, and contains an insanely powerful pratt and whitney r-2800 engine. It may be large, but the plane was deceptively fast, and was superior to most german planes at high altitudes. It was also better in a dive because of its weight. With its eight .50 caliber browning m2 machine guns, it could rip its way through any plane it was likely to encounter. Lloyd Bridges narrates the film, which is essentially a bunch of clips edited together that detail how the p-47s flew mission after mission against the germans, and all of it is in technicolor. This is important because color footage of world war 2 aerial combat is not as common as you think. You can fully appreciate the paint schemes on the various planes as well. The film doesn't have much in the way of a storyline. It's the second world war and that's all you can really say. They do however go over how cameras were installed in many areas of the planes, such as in the cockpit, under the wings, and even the small recesses the wheels retract into upon takeoff. Before all this takes place, the program begins with an intro featuring James Stewart, who had to contextualize world war 2 for the audiences by calling it "ancient history." This film was released only 2 years later in 1947, but many people were (understandably) sick of the war by then and James had to take that into account. It's also interesting to note that he commanded planes during the war as a colonel and is the highest-ranking hollywood actor who was in the military. In addition to its portrayal of actual p-47 missions, Thunderbolt also shows how the pilots live at their base, located on the island of Corsica off the coast of italy. Even crashes are shown. The film ends with the allies liberating Rome two days before d-day on June 4, 1944. The war in italy comes to an end, and the surrender of Hitler's ally doesn't take him by surprise. For what it is, Thunderbolt is an interesting film simply because it is real and none of it is staged. Sadly, this was the film that marked the beginning of the end for Wyler's hearing, as it didn't return one day after he returned from filming footage for a plane mission. Before this film could be edited, the war was over and the public lost interest in films relating to it. Two years later, the film was finally released by a company called Monogram. If it was distributed earlier, it would have been much more successful. If only it were that easy.

This is a colored post-war propaganda documentary from the military. James Stewart reads a statement at the start. This follows the 57th Fighter Group in 1944 Italy flying the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. There is no holding back on the horrors of war. There are corpses. There are ruins. The destruction is awesome and devastating. It is all recorded. It does take a long time to get to the flying. We're all here for the aerial footage. I haven't seen most of them before except for the strafing runs against the trains. It's hard to tell if those are the same as the ones I've seen before. Even if they are, this version is in color and that is different.

Often times film making from the war slips into propaganda and flag waving. This film instead shows the cold hard truth of a fighter group working out of Corsica in 1944. The personal, humanized glimpses of real men instead of lantern jawed actors as they go on about their days, living their daily lives worrying about who won't come back. The shooting style is from on board cameras from several points on the planes and shows so many real mission realities from a normal fighter sweep over Italy including coldly shooting up innocent farmhouses in search of one that's not so innocent and plowing any thing that moves in the daylight.

At some point as you watch this you go through so many emotions from the shock of realizing just how young these pilots are to being mystified about how they can be so cold as they light up the Italian country side to a sad understanding as director William Wyler shows you what would never be shown in a Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" movies, the charred body of a Jug pilot being pulled from the burning wreckage of his fighter with a hook. The end scene of the pilots and crews falling over drunk makes complete sense.

This film is much more poignant than Wyler's later film "Memphis Belle" which while good shows the touch of war time censors. Released in 1945, after the war in Europe was over, "Thunderbolt" drives home the very human

costs of war.