Aerial Gunner (1943)

Platform:  DVD MOVIE Publisher:  ALPHA VIDEO Packaging:  DVD STYLE BOX A bomber plane limps home from a dangerous mission and the wounded pilot recounts in dramatic flashback the story of one soldier's bravery. Sworn rivals in civilian life Sgt. Davis and Foxy Pattis (Chester Morris) are shot down behind enemy lines. Surrounded by hostile Japanese troops they must put aside their deep hatred of one another in order to survive. Featuring convincing aerial dogfight footage and authoritative performances by Morris and Arlen this wartime propaganda extravaganza depicts men facing certain death roused to a higher calling.Starring: Richard Arlen Chester Morris & Robert MitchumDirected by: William H. PineScreenplay by: Maxwell Shane DVD Details: Run Time: 79 minutesNumber of Discs: 1Originally Released in 1943Black & WhiteNo region encoding; For global distribution. Product Description

Aerial Gunner DVD

Very Difficult and rare classic movie on DVD to find! Great price,fast Shipment, good communucation and the product arrived in good condition! What more could you want? Recommend this seller! Thanks!
Kevin February 28, 2008

Aerial Gunner

Typical of the war movies of that age. Very much the Americans are all good clean kids who will overcome injustice. I enjoyed looking at an America that was. Would purchase again but this is not a documentary or even a close approximation of real life. January 15, 2007

Not really a B-25 at all...

---
...per the earlier review, but more properly a Lockheed Hudson light bomber (rated an attack plane by the USAAF as either the A-28 or the A-29), which was converted to a combat aircraft from a fast civilian airliner to British specifications before the war. Several hundred of these were taken expediently from Lend-Lease manufacture into USAAF and USN inventory after Pearl Harbor, and the Hudson is listed as having achieved the USAAF's first antisubmarine warfare (ASW) kill in the Atlantic after the formal opening of hostilities.

Interestingly, the bomber in the movie is depicted as having a tail gunner's position (it did not) and as having a single waist gunner (ditto). Hudson aircraft taken into the US inventory commonly had the big British Boulton-Paul dual .303 MG waist turret removed, to be replaced with a simple single-weapon .50 caliber dorsal firing station (like the one depicted in the movie as being manned by the radio operator). The previous reviewer's confusion is therefore somewhat understandable. Hopefully, enemy viewers of the movie also drew false impressions about the Hudson, and didn't as readily seek to exploit the aircraft's posterior and ventral vulnerabilities.

As for the film itself, the most interesting part was the depiction of aerial gunnery training, which definitely did include shooting skeet in order to give the trainees better preparatory conditioning for deflection shooting.
--- August 15, 2004

Aerial Gunner

Although dated by today's standards ("Holy Christopher!"), the movie gives an accurate account of aerial gunnery training in WWII. For the first hour (of the 90 minute film), all aspects of gunnery training are portrayed. I fully enjoyed the epic, even though the characters end up in a B-25 Mitchell. (I'm partial to B-24 Liberators!) Well worth the watch!! April 10, 2002

More reviews at Amazon.com ...