The Few - forthcoming film?

Kyt · Oct 27, 2007

The Few is a Second World War drama that Tom Cruise is tentatively slated to star in. It focuses on American pilot Billy Fiske's tenacity at disregarding the USA's then-neutrality in the war and flying Hurricanes against the Germans. John Logan is writing the screenplay, based on the book by Alex Kershaw, but the production might run into problems after Paramount Pictures very recently - and very publicly - severed all ties with Cruise and his producing partner Paula Wagner. Whether the project will move to another studio or whether Cruise will now be forced to drop out remains unseen.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388940/

Billy Fiske
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Fiske

Kyt · Oct 27, 2007

Actually I started this thread because I needed an excuse to post this wonderful article:

Cinema: Hollywood updates history of Battle of Britain: Tom Cruise
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4159/is_20040411/ai_n12753859
(originally from Independent on Sunday, The, Apr 11, 2004 by Cole Moreton but can't access it on their site)

Billy Fiske was a racing driver, a pilot, an Olympic gold medallist and an American - but one thing he did not do was win the Battle of Britain single-handed. Veterans and historians fear that will be the impression given, however, when Tom Cruise plays Fiske in a new film called The Few.

"I've heard it is almost like he won the war all on his own," says Ben Clinch, who loaded the guns fired by the real Billy Fiske and his comrades in 601 Squadron during the summer of 1940. "I can't see how they can make a film of Fiske's life. It was quite short. He was unremarkable, in the context of the squadron. He was just another pilot as far as we were concerned."

Hollywood's version of the Second World War has already shown Americans capturing the Enigma code machine in U571 (they didn't) and leading The Great Escape from a German prisoner of war camp (also not true). Pearl Harbor even suggested that the RAF only thwarted the Luftwaffe in the summer of 1940 because US pilots popped across the Atlantic to help out. Now Mr Cruise looks set to expand on that with his own version of what Churchill called our "finest hour".

Fiske was a remarkable character who did fly in the Battle of Britain, but recorded no confirmed kills. "It is going to be a farce if we have the Yanks shooting down everything in sight," says Bill Bond of the Battle of Britain Historical Society. "The battle was four weeks old when Billy was shot down. He made several sorties but he didn't shoot anything down, and his impact on the battle was negligible. We are concerned."

The Few is being made by Michael Mann, director of Top Gun, the jet-fighter movie that made Tom Cruise's name. Currently in development, it will be based on the life of William Meade Lindsley Fiske III, son of a wealthy Chicago family, who became the youngest Winter Olympics contestant to win a gold medal, in the bobsleigh at the age of 16. Handsome, charming and addicted to speed, he married the former Countess of Warwick and raced at Le Mans. So far, so historical, and filmable. But alarm bells started ringing when Variety, the movie world's magazine of choice, described the film's historical content. "In 1940, expert German fighters had decimated the Royal Air Force to the point that there weren't enough pilots left to fly the Spitfire planes sitting idly in hangars," it said. "Unable to rouse the US into action, a desperate Winston Churchill hatched a covert effort to recruit civilian American pilots to join the RAF. Risking prison sentences in the then-neutral US, a ragtag bunch of pilots answered the call." The magazine also looked forward to "ferocious dogfights between the overmatched American pilots and the German ace fliers".

This account prompted despairing laughter from Bill Bond last week. "It's hilarious," he said. "Totally wrong. The whole bloody lot. They flew Hurricanes for a start." Spitfires have a more romantic image, however. "Recruited by Churchill? Crap. They wouldn't have gone to prison either." And as for the idea of aircraft sitting idly by in hangars while the brave Americans took to the skies: "What a load of bloody rubbish. We did have a pilot shortage, but not to that extent."

Mr Bond has much more confidence in the accuracy of a forthcoming book by the author Alex Kershaw, whose proposal was the inspiration for The Few. The book is due to be published by Michael Joseph next year. Mr Kershaw also wrote The Bedford Boys, the basis for the film Saving Private Ryan.

There was no crack American squad of flyers, but at least nine US citizens did fly and fight during the Battle of Britain, according to the aviation historian Andy Saunders. "It would be an injustice to the memory of Billy Fiske were Hollywood to corrupt his story," said Mr Saunders in a recent edition of Aeroplane magazine. Although a gifted pilot, Fiske was frustrated by his own lack of combat action. His Hurricane caught fire in the air on 16 August 1940, but nobody knows whether this was because of enemy bullets or an accident. Soon after he landed, his airfield, RAF Tangmere, was attacked by Stuka bombers. Fiske died in hospital the next day from his burns.

Two other American pilots had been killed before him, but it was the dashing, well-connected Fiske who caught the public imagination - or was recognised as useful for propaganda purposes. Churchill sent a wreath to his airfield, and in July 1941 a plaque was unveiled by the Minister for Air at St Paul's Cathedral. His gravestone at Boxgrove in Sussex was replaced and rededicated in 2002.

"There is no doubt the Few, as Churchill called them, were wonderful," said Ben Clinch, now chairman of the 601 Squadron Royal Auxiliary Air Force Old Comrades' Association. "They gave their lives without thought. It's a good job they were there."

But his memories of the time are very different to those told in heroic movies: 601 was nicknamed the Millionaire's Squadron because most of its pilots moved in high social circles. "They were very aloof," said Mr Clinch.

When petrol rationing hit hard, one of the wealthy flyers bought a local garage outright, he said. "We used to get visits from theatrical types from the West End. The stars went to see the officers. The chorus line went to the non-commissioned officers. We got nothing."

Mr Clinch saw Billy Fiske's Hurricane land for the last time but took cover as buildings around him exploded. He has a print of a painting on his wall that shows one version of Fiske's last moments, but at 85 he is bemused by the attempts to immortalise this one of many pilots. "This resurrection is commercial, as far as I can see," he said. "But at my age I let sleeping dogs lie."

HOW UNCLE SAM REWROTE THE SCRIPT

Objective, Burma! (1945)

Errol Flynn's paratroopers overcome the Japanese with barely a Brit in sight, although it was really they who won the battle. The press and public, some of whom had fought in Burma, were so outraged that the film had to be withdrawn.

The Great Escape (1963)

Steve McQueen played a leading part in a mass escape from a POW camp. In real life, 76 got out of Stalag Luft III, but only three made it alive; 50 were shot and 23 recaptured. No Americans among them.

Braveheart (1995)

Mel Gibson as a charming William Wallace - not the real man who wore the skin of an opposing general as his belt. Wallace fathers a son by the Princess of Wales who really gave birth seven years after his execution.

Titanic (1998)

First Officer William McMaster Murdoch is remembered as a hero in his Scottish home for saving passengers. He froze to death in the sea. The film shows him shooting passengers in a blind panic.

U-571 (2000)

Harvey Keitel and other plucky American seamen pull an Enigma code machine from a sinking German submarine and change the course of the war. Except that it was the crew of HMS Bulldog.

The Patriot (2000)

Gibson again as a pacifist provoked into joining the American War of Independence when sadistic Brits herd women and children into a church and set fire to it. Nothing like that happened.
Click to expand...

spidge · Oct 27, 2007

On one hand they have messed with history, on the other they have rejuvenated some interest to the younger generation of whom "sadly", a greater percentage believe what they see.

Antipodean Andy · Nov 5, 2007

You'd like to think that, despite what Hollywood is looking like doing to this small story, whatever the film becomes the younger people, who have their interests aroused and are technologically savvy, will hop on the net and do some research to find out more. Even just one or two may delve deeper and keep the history alive.

morse1001 · Nov 5, 2007

Andy in West Oz said: ↑

You'd like to think that, despite what Hollywood is looking like doing to this small story, whatever the film becomes the younger people, who have their interests aroused and are technologically savvy, will hop on the net and do some research to find out more. Even just one or two may delve deeper and keep the history alive.
Click to expand...

In some ways, youare correct, there will a minority who will feel the desire to read up on the subject and might find a interest or have their preceptions of the war changed. But sadly, most peple will be talking about the great CGI effects with BF109s and He111s after a few shots from the .303 of the spitfire flown by Biily Fiske!

spidge · Nov 5, 2007

morse1001 said: ↑

after a few shots from the .303 of the spitfire flown by Biily Fiske!
Click to expand...

Who..............?

morse1001 · Nov 5, 2007

spidge said: ↑

Who..............?
Click to expand...

Exactly!...............

liverpool annie · Jan 3, 2009

morse1001 said: ↑

Exactly!...............
Click to expand...

I was getting ready to add Billy Fiske to the Sportsmen who died in the war on the other site ... when I realised he should be here !!

In Memory of
Pilot Officer WILLIAM MEAD LINDSLEY FISKE

78092, 601 Sqdn., Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve
who died
on 17 August 1940
Born in the U.S.A. One of only two Americans who died in the Battle of Britain. On 4th July, 1941 the Secretary of State for Air, Sir Archibald Sinclair, unveiled a Memorial Plaque to Fiske, in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral. .
Remembered with honour
BOXGROVE (SS. MARY AND BLAISE) CHURCHYARD

Fiske was one of seven US pilots in the Battle of Britain although due to the neutrality of the United States he pretended to be a Canadian - toboggan gold medallist in the 1932 Olympics, he was the first American airman to fly with the RAF (UK) in 1939. On 16 August 1940 after a 15 minute fight in the Battle of Britain that destroyed eight Stuka dive bombers, Fiske's hands and ankles were burnt after a German gunner put a bullet through Fiske’s fuel tank.Although Fiske landed the plane safely (one source identifies a crash at Bognor Regis), his fuel tank exploded on the ground He died soon afterwards aged just 29 years

William Fiske (1911 - 1940) - Find A Grave Memorial

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The Few - forthcoming film?

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