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Memphis Belle (film)
''Memphis Belle'' is a 1990 British-American war drama film directed by Michael Caton-Jones and written by Monte Merrick. The film stars Matthew Modine, Eric Stoltz, and Harry Connick Jr. (in his film debut). ''Memphis Belle'' is a fictional version of the 1944 documentary '' Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress'' by director William Wyler, about the 25th and last mission of an American Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber, the '' Memphis Belle'', based in England during World War II. The 1990 version was co-produced by David Puttnam and Wyler's daughter Catherine and dedicated to her father. The film closes with a dedication to all airmen, friend or foe, who fought in the skies above Europe during World War II. Plot The ''Memphis Belle'', a B-17 Flying Fortress, and her crew are set to complete 25 missions, a prerequisite for the crew to complete their tour of duty. Along with the rest of the squadron, ''Belle'' is given the task of attacking a Focke Wulf 190 air ...
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Michael Caton-Jones
Michael Caton-Jones (born Michael Jones; 15 October 1957) is a Scottish director and producer of film and television. His credits include the World War II film '' Memphis Belle'' (1990), the romantic comedy '' Doc Hollywood'' (1991), the biographical drama ''This Boy's Life'' (1993), the historical epic '' Rob Roy'' (1995), the action thriller '' The Jackal'' (1997), and an erotic thriller sequel, ''Basic Instinct 2'' (2006). He also directed the Channel 4 miniseries '' Brond'' (1987) and '' World Without End'' (2012). Career Caton-Jones attended the National Film and Television School. In October 2017, he revealed he had chosen Sophie Okonedo, to star in ''B. Monkey''. However producer, Harvey Weinstein, reportedly decided the actress was not "f**kable". Caton-Jones and Weinstein discussed the matter heatedly and Caton-Jones said, "'Don’t screw up the casting of this film because you want to get laid', whereupon he went mental." Weinstein then told ''Variety'' that Caton-J ...
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Warner Bros
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. Founded in 1923 by four brothers, Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack Warner, the company established itself as a leader in the American film industry before diversifying into animation, television, and video games and is one of the "Big Five" major American film studios, as well as a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA). The company is known for its film studio division the Warner Bros. Pictures Group, which includes Warner Bros. Pictures, New Line Cinema, the Warner Animation Group, Castle Rock Entertainment, and DC Studios. Among its other assets, stands the television production company Warner Bros. Television Studios. Bugs Bunny, a cartoon character created by Tex Avery, Ben Hardaway, Chuck Jones, Bob Givens and Robe ...
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Manufacturing Plant
A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an Industry (manufacturing), industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with Outline of industrial machinery, machinery, where workers manufacturing, manufacture items or operate machines which Process Manufacturing, process each item into another. They are a critical part of modern Production (economics), economic production, with the majority of the world's goods being created or processed within factories. Factories arose with the introduction of machinery during the Industrial Revolution, when the Capital (economics), capital and space requirements became too great for Putting-out system, cottage industry or workshops. Early factories that contained small amounts of machinery, such as one or two spinning mules, and fewer than a dozen workers have been called "glorified workshops". Most modern factories have large warehouses or warehouse-like facilities that contain heavy equipment used ...
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Focke Wulf 190
The Focke-Wulf Fw 190, nicknamed ''Würger'' (" Shrike") is a German single-seat, single-engine fighter aircraft designed by Kurt Tank at Focke-Wulf in the late 1930s and widely used during World War II. Along with its well-known counterpart, the Messerschmitt Bf 109, the Fw 190 became the backbone of the (Fighter Force) of the . The twin-row BMW 801 radial engine that powered most operational versions enabled the Fw 190 to lift larger loads than the Bf 109, allowing its use as a day fighter, fighter-bomber, ground-attack aircraft and to a lesser degree, night fighter. The Fw 190A started flying operationally over France in August 1941 and quickly proved superior in all but turn radius to the Spitfire Mk. V, the main front-line fighter of the Royal Air Force (RAF), particularly at low and medium altitudes. The 190 maintained superiority over Allied fighters until the introduction of the improved Spitfire Mk. IX. In November/December 1942, the Fw 190 made its air combat ...
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Tour Of Duty
For military personnel, a tour of duty is usually a period of time spent in combat or in a hostile environment. In an army, for instance, soldiers on active duty serve 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the length of their service commitment. Soldiers in World War II were deployed for the entire war and could be in active service for 4–5 years. Air force In World War II, Royal Air Force doctors had started to notice symptoms of battle fatigue in their pilots. Before 1942, there was no official limit for an operational tour. Some pilots had been flying over 200 missions with only a short break. Then the Senior Medical Officer of the RAF station Biggin Hill intervened, after asking one flight sergeant how many missions he had done and was surprised to hear 200 over 2 years. A tour system was then adopted; the length of it varied, depending on the period, theatre, and Command requirements of the time. In Western Europe, it was set at 200 hours operational flying. In 1944 in S ...
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World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, massa ...
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England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight. The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Paleolithic period, but takes its name from the Angles, a Germanic tribe deriving its name from the Anglia peninsula, who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in the 10th century and has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century. The English language, the Anglican Church, and Engli ...
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Memphis Belle (aircraft)
The ''Memphis Belle'' is a Boeing B-17F Flying Fortress used during the Second World War that inspired the making of two motion pictures: a 1944 documentary film, '' Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress'' and the 1990 Hollywood feature film, '' Memphis Belle''. It was one of the first United States Army Air Forces B-17 heavy bombers to complete 25 combat missions, after which the aircrew returned with the bomber to the United States to sell war bonds. In 2005 restoration began on the ''Memphis Belle'' at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio where, since May 2018, it has been on display. The B-17 used in the 1990 feature film is housed at the National Warplane Museum in Geneseo, New York. Crew The crew for the ''Memphis Belle'' was as follows: * Pilot: Captain Robert K. Morgan * Co-pilot: Captain James A. Verinis * Navigator: Captain Charles B. Leighton * Bombardier: Captain Vincent B. Evans * The First Engineer/Top ...
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Bomber
A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped from an aircraft occurred in the Italo-Turkish War, with the first major deployments coming in the First World War and Second World War by all major airforces causing devastating damage to cities, towns, and rural areas. The first purpose built bombers were the Italian Caproni Ca 30 and British Bristol T.B.8, both of 1913. Some bombers were decorated with nose art or victory markings. There are two major classifications of bomber: strategic and tactical. Strategic bombing is done by heavy bombers primarily designed for long-range bombing missions against strategic targets to diminish the enemy's ability to wage war by limiting access to resources through crippling infrastructure or reducing industrial output. Tactical bombing is aimed at coun ...
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Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress
The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater of Operations and dropped more bombs than any other aircraft during World War II. It is the third-most produced bomber of all time, behind the four-engined Consolidated B-24 Liberator and the multirole, twin-engined Junkers Ju 88. It was also employed as a transport, antisubmarine aircraft, drone controller, and search-and-rescue aircraft. In a USAAC competition, Boeing's prototype Model 299/XB-17 outperformed two other entries but crashed, losing the initial 200-bomber contract to the Douglas B-18 Bolo. Still, the Air Corps ordered 13 more B-17s for further evaluation, then introduced it into service in 1938. The B-17 evolved through numerous design advances but from its inception, the USAAC (later, the USAAF) promoted the aircr ...
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William Wyler
William Wyler (; born Willi Wyler (); July 1, 1902 – July 27, 1981) was a Swiss-German-American film director and producer who won the Academy Award for Best Director three times, those being for '' Mrs. Miniver'' (1942), ''The Best Years of Our Lives'' (1946), and '' Ben-Hur'' (1959), all of which also won for Best Picture. In total, he holds a record twelve nominations for the Academy Award for Best Director. Born in Alsace, then in Germany, but later part of France, Wyler was a troublemaker in the schools of his youth. He immigrated to United States in 1921, working first for Universal Studios in New York before moving to Los Angeles. By 1925, he was the youngest director at Universal, and in 1929 he directed '' Hell's Heroes'', Universal's first sound production filmed entirely on location. In 1936, he earned his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director for '' Dodsworth'', starring Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton and Mary Astor, "sparking a 20-year run of a ...
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A Story Of A Flying Fortress
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version can be written in two forms: the double-storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English grammar, " a", and its variant " an", are indefinite articles. History The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted entirely of consonants (for that reason, it is also called an abjad to distinguish it f ...
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