When they arrive over the target, they find it covered by cloud, and Dennis makes the near-suicidal decision to go around for another run. Bombing missions were briefed for primary, secondary and tertiary targets, plus targets of opportunity; if the primary was inaccessible, the procedure was to abandon it and try the secondary, and so on. The leader of a mission would only go around for a second attempt if there was no possibility of hitting it on later missions (e.g. some of the bombing missions carried out in preparation for D-Day were no-return engagements). See more...
Very few flyable examples of the B-17 existed at the time of the shooting of the movie. One airplane "stood in" for several by having its decals changed. The B-17G featured in the film has since undergone a meticulous restoration and now lives in Renton, Washington, USA. Though it is fully flyable, certain certification issues with the Federal Aviation Administration have kept it grounded. See more...
Directed by Michael Caton-Jones, starring Eric Stoltz, Matthew Modine (add more)
Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. As such, any aggressive/abusive corrections (and I get quite a few) written as if they're comments I've made myself will be ignored. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click the edit icon under an entry, then choose "correct entry". Some entries have "duplicated entry" after them - these are entries which were already listed on the main page, but were submitted again. I occasionally leave these online for a while, just in case they were moved in error, so don't worry about pointing them out to me.
Everytime the gun crews call out attacking fighters, they identify them as (Focke-Wulf) 190's. Only two such aircraft appear in the movie. The rest of the German fighters are Messerchmitt Bf109's. [During the fighter attacks it is consistently stated by the crew that the incoming fighters are "One-oh-nines". Their voices are strangled and distorted by the oxygen masks but still clear enough.]
In a couple of scenes one of the crew is shown taking photographs indoors with a box camera. As no flash was used and there wouldnt have been any high speed film for that type of camera, they wouldnt have come out. [And since we never see the photograph it may well have been underexposed and useless, so this is not a film mistake but a character mistake.]
At the beginning when the planes are coming back, and the last one crashes, slow the playback to slow motion, and you can see the two port engines are missing propellers...one on the inner engine, and two on the outer. Just a few seconds later, those same two engines have all their respective props, but bent back. [The rules of this site are very clear - if you have to use slow motion to spot it, it isn't a mistake.]
At the start of the film, the date is shown on-screen as May. During the film, some of the crew are seen talking to the farmer in the adjoining field who is harvesting his wheat, 3 months early... [He isn't harvesting anything - he is testing and repairing his harvester, a perfectly reasonable thing for a farmer to do.]
The U.S fighters that escort the B-17s are P-51D Mustangs that have to turn back early due to lack of fuel. In 1943, the bombers would have had P-47 Thunderbolts as escort as the P-51D did not enter service until 1944. The Mustang could also fly all the way to the target and back due to its longer range. [This statement is somewhat correct. Actually, at the time the Belle historically completed her 25th mission, the escort fighters were British Spitfires, piloted by British pilots. The producers of the film publicly acknowledged this change, stating that they felt American audiences would have been distracted by the usage of British fighters in that scene.]
You may also like: Midway | Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World | Me, Myself & Irene | Casino Royale | Saving Private Ryan
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