batman

Unfortunately this event has had to be cancelled due to ill health. I just received an email from the organiser informing me of this.

Bats.

I wish I had claws.

stevie boy

My favourite is A Man Called Peter.

Frank63

They are showing a new digitized version of "The Dambusters" at my local multipex next Monday Dec 10th. As it's a 'Cineworld' it's likley they'll be showing it at other multiplexes in the group.

Roll on Monday, can't wait to see it on the big screen. last time would have been in the 1950's but this time I won't be running out of the cinema with my arms outstreched and singing dah dah dah dah dadaddadah

Steve Crook

Why not? It's fun

I went to the BBC Proms when they did the evening of British Film Music and as I walked back to the tube I head someone whistling the Dam Busters' March

Steve

dremble wedge

I saw that on BBC2 over the summer and it looked fantastic. I laughed out loud at the 'Carry On' suite.

Steve Crook

Well I was really there for the music from The Red Shoes of course
The first time it's been performed in public by a full orchestra, including the Ondes Martenot and as I helped the BBC find the full score and I was there with the widow and children of the composer (Brian Easdale), it was definitely a wonderful evening

Steve

johnhill

I think that Jim and others are right, the raid itself did not decide the outcome of the war in material terms, but, the psychological value ranks with the RAF raid on Gestapo headquarters
in Holland or Mosquitoes appearing overhead as Goering made a public speech or in modern terms, a cruise missile turning right at the crossroads before proceeding for half a mile and then entering middle window 3rd floor. Quite devastating to enemy moral.

johnhill

I think that Jim and others are right, the raid itself did not decide the outcome of the war in material terms, but, the psychological value ranks with the RAF raid on Gestapo headquarters
in Holland or Mosquitoes appearing overhead as Goering made a public speech or in modern terms, a cruise missile turning right at the crossroads before proceeding for half a mile and then entering middle window 3rd floor. Quite devastating to enemy moral.

john audley

Yes, I agree a really great film and I would like to mention two of the most moving scenes.
The first being the airmen on the ground, at dusk, just before take of and the second is the picture of the three planes flying over Lincoln Cathedral - quite biblical and tear jerking.

I would also mention too, probably one of the finest 'on the ground sequences of bomber command' must be most parts of 'Appointment in London'. Totally realistic and with Sam Kidd as well!

cooleyn

When it comes to great books about the WW2 bombing campaign, might I venture to suggest that the daddy of them all (in fiction terms) is the incomparable masterpiece "Bomber" by Len Deighton

What really engages about this book is that it portrays all sides of what was, ultimately, a great tragedy of humanity - and takes no sides either - whilst being a totally rivetting read from cover to cover.

Almost all of the characters, events and aspects are so well portrayed, including the fictional small town of Altgarten, which finds itself on the receiving end of a "main force" raid which hit the wrong town. Highly emotive stuff - brilliantly written.

I have read it many, many times, and would rank it as possibly "THE GREATEST WAR MOVIE NEVER MADE" (your thoughts on that subject??)

But of course, that might be because there were no Americans in it, although on the flip side of the coin, Len Deighton's superb "Goodbye Mickey Mouse" was all about the USAAF in England, and no film was made of it (although the denouement shock-effect was, in my opinion, effectively stolen by "Saving Private Ryan")

Incidentally, I've just read in a new Max Hastings book, that movie star Paul Newman was a radioman on an Avenger Torpedo bomber, who narrowly avoided being a kamikaze victim on the carrier USS Bunker Hill at Okinawa.

So glad I joined this forum, by the way - it allows me to ramble idiotically at will.

joddymix

Hello all,

I have read this entire thread with both trepidation and confusion; Firstly no one has the right to change anything in a re-make, we simply haven't earned the honour.
Our forefathers fought and spilled blood in order for us to live the way we do today, although I hasten to add I think we are trashing it (You only have to look at the madness of interrupting the recent games flame ). Whether it is 'unpleasant' to the ethic minorities or not is completely irrelevant, facts are facts, the film portrayed a REAL event to which most of us (if not all) could simply not replicate today under those same conditions. My grandfather was a navigator on the Tirpitz bombing run and when we used to talk I noticed that there was an unprecedented air of pride in what they achieved not to mention pride as (dare I say it) an ENGLISHMAN?!?

All I seem to hear today are PC idiots and their armchair conclusions to which I might add only worsen current events (bah bah rainbow sheep indeed). I am ashamed to be English, to think that we as a nation stood together to fight a common enemy only to hear things like the dog's name might be changed in a remake really infuriates me. It's time the English amongst others grew a backbone again and dealt with the problems at hand i.e. Get rid of the government and stop them selling our assets off! Not to mention trashing our heritage in schools, removing (or trying to remove) our Identity and Freedom, what am I saying?!? We have no FREEDOM, that's been given to the rest...lol

As for the Dambusters; To think that a group of guys could fly at such unbelievable low levels, face flak head on whilst keeping their cool until it was time to drop the upkeep only then to find that it missed and went over..hehe (what a bummer that must have been) cannot really be described, as my grandad used to say 'You have to have been there to really describe it lad) although The Dambusters is as real as it gets!! One of the memorable parts in the movie is young alan from emmerdale "Any balloons sir?".

Peace

joddymix

Do we really need to bend over much further in order to satisfy those who maybe a different colour? Personally the new film should reflect *everything* including the dogs name, after all it's just a name isn't it? or are we all racists? I don't agree with changing the name at all, far from it in fact, if the wing commander called his dog 'split link' or 'egg and spoon' I could understand it as both refer to cultures in a derogatory term and are plainly racist but we could go on and on about so-called racism, how you can be a racist in your own country amazes me also..lol

Now there is a question ;)

Without deterring too far from the thread (and I apologise) I agree to a point that we need to accept other cultures but and this is the cruncher, what if a minority does not want to integrate? They want to remain patriotically English, this is now looked upon as bigotry! My grandfather and millions of others did not die preserving 'multiculti' or indeed the 'PC brigade', they died preserving our 'way of life' which is? Maintaining our heritage rights, our freedom, our Identity and our culture. Not for a small body of head teachers to throw it all away and allow the government 'yes ALLOW' to sell off parts of the country including British rail to the Japanese so they can lease it back to us at a ridiculous price..lol If this is the price of progress, stop the world I need to get off.

rant over....

penfold

Let's hope so. For the record, my grandparents served to protect the culture of this country too. That culture includes tolerance of race, politics and creed, and good manners both to our friends and those we don't know. None of them do I recall using the 'N' word because they were aware of its offensiveness, not just to black people but to most people of my generation. Nor would they have used it in the distant past because they were not offensive people, and served both in war and in peace alongside colleagues of many races. I have a deep and long-abiding fascination for English culture; its folk music and its films in particular. It does not make me either a racist or a bigot, in fact the opposite; as you cannot study either subject for long without realising the contribution other cultures have been making to ours for centuries, if not millennia. Those who claim to love our culture and remain intolerant of outsiders are simply ignorant of what our culture actually is.
As for the selling off of national assets, let's all hope Thatcherism was a temporary blip in this island's history. If ever there was a leader who draped herself in the flag without knowing its meaning, it was her.

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

ted

You all might be interested to hear that some bloke in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a broadcaster, I think, was hauled before the Human Rights Commission there for using the word "niggardly".

And the damage to the German munitions industry was evidently minimal. I think Speer said he had things up and running a week after the attack.

Ted, Ottawa

penfold

In the words of Mandy Rice-Davis, He Would Say That, Wouldn't He. The effort to get the factories up and running, and the dams rebuilt, meant that in parts of Normandy troops on D-Day were overrunning unfinished and incomplete Atlantic Wall defences...the Todt Organisation had diverted manpower to the Ruhr.

Bit of a Bay Window, what??