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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...

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Memphis Belle (1990) - 21 mistakes

Directed by Michael Caton-Jones, starring Eric Stoltz, Matthew Modine (add more)

Genres: Action, Drama, War

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Factual error: Noted by my father, a WW2 RAF mechanic - They hold a huge dance in the hangar at night, and Dennis leaves to walk to the Memphis Belle through the hangar doors, which are wide open. The whole flight line, tarmac and hangar are bathed with light - on a US Air Force base in East Anglia during the height of the German bombing offensive. Haven't they heard of the blackout? Why not just paint a big fluorescent sign on the runway saying 'Please Drop Bombs Here'?

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Factual error: The Memphis Belle's 25th and final combat mission did not result in her returning to base badly crippled as shown in the film. The propaganda and morale boosting value of her completing her combat life was so important to the U.S. Army Air Force that her final assignment was an uneventful "milk run".

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Continuity: After the Memphis Belle drops its bombs and scores a direct hit on its target you see the Memphis Belle lift up and turn right with the bomb bay doors closed. The next scene the bombadier says "okay, bomb bay doors, closing" and you see the doors close again.

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Factual error: At the end of the film when the plane is struggling to make it back to the airfield it passes over some corn fields. You can clearly see the tramlines in the field created for the tractors to run through the crop with pesticide sprayers. Such things did not occur at the time of WW II.

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Factual error: Bomber crews in WWII were constantly shuffled around to fill losses and train new members or allow repairs on a plane. Contrary to what the film tells us, Captain Robert Morgan's crew only flew 21 missions in Memphis Belle, though bomber and crew both completed 25 total missions.

Edit Submitted by Grumpy Scot
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Factual error: The whole crew of the Memphis Belle are shown having breakfast in the same mess hall. In fact, officers and sergeants messed in separate halls.

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Factual error: One of the most carefully rationed materials in World War 2 was rubber. There were no rubber-like plastics or other synthetics in those days, so what were all those balloons at the dance made out of?

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Continuity: When the bottom turret is shot out, Rascal is hauled into the ship, and although the turret is completly destroyed, when the Belle lands, the bottom turret is visible and intact again.

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Continuity: When the 3rd engine is going out, you see both of the landing gears are up, but it was just moments before that Dennis already lowered the left landing gear.

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Visible crew/equipment: In the scene where Dan is being attended to by the crew after he has been hit you can clearly see that it is a prosthetic arm that they are holding up and not Dan's.

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Factual error: When the badly damaged Memphis Belle finally lands, the crew disembark and several of them light cigarettes. Not a chance. Anyone smoking within a few hundred yards of a WW2 bomber would have been arrested on the spot - if they were lucky enough to survive the experience. Those planes were flying fuel tanks, and they had lots left sloshing about after a mission. A damaged bomber was especially vulnerable. In fact, crews were forbidden to take smoking materials, matches or lighters on a mission.

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Factual error: Dennis warns the crew not to go without their oxygen masks. Throughout the movie, most of them do. At a service altitude of 25,000 feet any B-17 crew member who went without oxygen for more than one minute would lapse into unconsciousness. After twenty minutes, they would be dead.

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Factual error: These bombers were flying at a very high altitude. The air at that altitude was extremely cold. In fact, many wounded airmen survived because their blood would freeze and therefore stop the bleeding. Due to the fact that the cabin was not pressurized, this necessitated the need for oxygen,"bomber's jackets" and gloves. Under NO circumstances would airmen remove their gloves to touch metal because their skin would instantly adhere to any exposed metal at that altitude/temperature. This makes the scene with the disappearing/reappearing medal seem unbelievable.

Edit Submitted by Terrell Wiggins
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Deliberate "mistake": When the crew are piling into their jeep to ride out to their aircraft, the gunners ask the officers what their target is, and are disgusted to hear that it is Bremen, a tough one. The gunners should know their target already. Gunners were briefed on their target, and told what kind of fighter opposition to expect.

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Continuity: In one scene, Jack discovers the 'couldn't get laid last night' note Genie taped to his back, then a couple of scenes later, when Rascal is telling the crew the joke he heard from one of the waist gunners from Windy City, the note is taped to his back again.

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Factual error: 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).

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Factual error: When the crews head out to their aircraft, the ground crews are just finishing "bombing-up" and preparing the planes. In reality, these jobs were begun while the aircrews were still in bed, and would be long finished by the time they arrived at their planes.

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Factual error: I have read previous remarks on the site referring to the presence of 'tram lines' in the crops in the shots of the crippled bomber struggling to come in to land at the airbase, indicating that this is an anachronism. If you refer to the opening sequence of the film there is a caption referring to the date May 16th. 1943. At that time of year there would have been no golden, ripened wheat/barley in any case. It would still have been green - certainly in those days, when crops would have ripened later, if anything. In most outdoor, daylight shots of the airbase these same ripened crops can be seen in the background, so at least the filmmaker gets this consistently wrong.

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Revealing: The B17 that crash lands in the beginning appears quite realistic, until during a head on shot when you can see daylight through the clear nose from a window in the back of the plane. This shows it to be model as in the real plane bulkheads would block this from happening.

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Revealing: When C-Cup's nose gets clipped and the guy falls out, it is most obviously a doll/dummy falling out.

Edit Submitted by William Bergquist