From gung-ho wartime propaganda to the fashionable antiwar statements of the '70s, the bomber movie has flown a lot of missions. Now, with Memphis Belle, the genre comes full circle. Here are four notable stages in the round- trip, all available on video.
Air Force (1943)
Howard Hawks' tough film follows a B-17 crew
from day- before-Pearl-Harbor callowness to weary proficiency, with
an interest in nuts and bolts that will delight some and bore others.
The real subject is the unspoken pleasure of teamwork. B+
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)
Van Johnson leads the first
attack on Japan, while Phyllis Thaxter stays home dreaming up names
for their unborn child: it's the bomber movie as high MGM corn. The
raid itself is stunning, but more typical is Johnson exhorting his
men to glory while flying toward an absurdly fake Mt. Fuji. C
The War Lover (1962)
The Wild One with planes. As a yank ace in
England, antihero Steve McQueen flies brilliantly but disobeys
orders, nearly rapes his copilot's girlfriend, and finally fireballs
straight into the White Cliffs of Dover — all illustrating what his
flight surgeon calls ''the fine line that separates the hero from the
psychopath.'' B
Catch-22 (1970)
Mike Nichols and an all-star cast bludgeon Joseph
Heller's lyrical bitterness with trendy '60s nihilism, turning a
dark, daft look at American bombers in Italy into an endless bad
trip. And on video, the wide- screen visuals are trashed. C-
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