William Wyler (35 page)

He also sang the praises of the men: “They're not only wonderful at their jobs and veterans after they've been over a few times, they're the most alert, most alive, and most stimulating group of young men I've ever met.”
⁴⁹
It was this spirit, among other things, that Wyler wanted to capture in the documentary he was now calling “25 Missions”— the number of missions Eighth Air Force bomber crews had to complete before being shipped home. The
Memphis Belle
was closing in on that number, and the story of its final trip was to be the focal point of Wyler's story.

Before Wyler could begin assembling the film, the footage needed to be blown up from 16mm to 35mm, which had to be done in the United States. Before putting in for his leave, however, Wyler learned that King George and Queen Elizabeth were scheduled to tour Bassingbourn as a morale booster; knowing that this would make a perfect coda for his story, he arranged for them to inspect the
Memphis Belle
.

Four days after the royal visit, Wyler flew his fifth mission (not on the
Belle);
this qualified him for an air medal, which he received on June 7. On June 28, in a letter to Robert Lovett, assistant secretary of war for air, he indicated that he was leaving for the States and noted, “In sixty days I hope to be able to show you the finished picture which will be in the form of a documentary short subject on the 8th Air Force activities in general and Captain Robert Morgan and the crew of the B-17 ‘Memphis Belle' in particular.”
⁵⁰

Upon returning to California, Wyler set up his offices at the Hal Roach studios—now dubbed “Fort Roach”—in Culver City. He would be able to cut, edit, and dub the film there, but he had to wait until he received his 35mm print from the Technicolor Company. By the end of August, Wyler reported that “due to unavoidable technical difficulties and uncontrollable delays by Technicolor Company,” he would be unable to complete the film on schedule and requested “an additional month to finish the job.”
⁵¹

Meanwhile, the
Memphis Belle
's crew had returned to the States in June and been welcomed as heroes. Captain Morgan was touring the country, putting on demonstrations of acrobatic flying to raise money for war bonds. The crew was traveling across the country as well, being feted with parades and others honors.

Although his film had originally been planned as a two-reel feature documentary, Wyler now believed that it should be expanded. He expressed his enthusiasm in a cable to Beirne Lay in the summer of 1943: “Possibilities of this project far greater than previously anticipated and of greater and more immediate benefit than RAF-AAF feature project due to complete authenticity and fact that Morgan and crew of Memphis Belle have become national heroes. Expect finished film will run four to five reels.”
⁵²
He also requested that the crew of the
Belle
be sent to Culver City so he could record (in sound and color) their “spectacular civic and military reception and their message to war workers for end of picture.”
⁵³
It is unclear whether such footage was ever assembled; none of it appears in the released film.

Wyler brought back 19,000 feet of color film, all of it silent. He needed some dialogue and also a new script. As late as November, he wrote to Tex McCrary, a radio personality who was working for General Eaker, “that the picture was pretty much SNAFU.”
⁵⁴
The problem was still the length. The personnel assigned to cut the film, whose primary responsibility was producing training films, had been told to make it two reels or less. Wyler's critique of their methodology provides an important insight into his obsession with realism and his predilection for the details in camera shots and in actors' gestures that contribute to achieving the perfect look: “They cut out what they considered unessential. But it has been my experience that the so-called unessentials are often what make the essentials—
essentials
.” In addition, “the commentary had been greatly changed and was read, for the greater part, like a radio announcer at a football game.”
⁵⁵
Wyler needed more time to expand the film and rewrite the dialogue, and he had to fly back to England to make his case in person, but it worked. Eaker granted Wyler an extension. He then returned to Culver City to make a longer film and hired Lester Koenig to rewrite the script.

Koenig had a variety of partially written and completed drafts to digest. Wyler's papers include two uncredited scripts; one is undated, and the other, comprising only fifteen pages and titled “Eighth Air Force,” is dated August 6, 1943.
⁵⁶
The first, which is handwritten, contains lengthy sections of prose narration that follow the crew from the briefing room to the preparation for takeoff, the actual takeoff, the ride into enemy territory, the dropping of the bombs, the race to avoid the flak fired by German planes, and the party after their safe return home. The opening narration reads in part: “This film is not about how the bombs got here, nor how the planes were built and flown over, nor how the men were trained and brought here. We're just going to try to indicate what it takes in ships and men, fields and guts, to take the bombs out of the bomb-dump and drop them on a specific place—somewhere in Germany—also to bring back the men and ships who do the job—so they can do it again—and again—until the enemy has had enough.”
⁵⁷
The dated script utilizes the verse-like form that Koenig would hone and stylize in his final draft. This version has more dialogue, as the crew members talk about their experiences and their familial feelings for one another, and it specifies the location of the mission (Saint-Nazaire). The final script focuses on the mission to Wilhelmshaven.

These two versions may have been written by Maxwell Anderson, whose name appears on two prose drafts that bear some resemblance to the scripts in terms of language and use of incidents. Anderson's credited drafts are titled “Skeleton Commentary for Documentary Film in Colour Featuring Captain Morgan and the Crew of ‘Memphis Belle.'” Koenig would utilize many of the details and continuity from Anderson's treatment, which begins, “This is a bomb dump,” and concludes with a repetition and a coda, “This is a bomb dump. And this is an air photo of Vegesack (a third location) after our boys delivered the bomb.” Anderson, however, had envisioned a short film; Koenig, whose script was for five reels (forty-one minutes), was able to provide more detail and nuance. Koenig's script was written in poeticized prose, producing a cadenced, staccato rhythm. The difference between Anderson's flat reportage and Koenig's metrical narration is striking:

And this is the crew of the Memphis Belle.

324th Squadron, 91st Heavy Bombardment Group.

Just one plane and one crew

In one squadron.

In one group.

Of one wing.

Of one air force.

Out of fifteen United States Army Air Forces.
⁵⁸

Although the film is technically a documentary, Koenig's narration occasionally moves away from the descriptive and factual into more abstract, conceptual language, such as when the bombers increase their altitude on the way to their targets:

You look out at the strange world beyond—

Reflections in plexiglass.

Like nothing you ever saw before.

Outside of a dream.

Higher and higher

Into the lifeless stratosphere

Until the exhaust of engines,

Mixing with the cold thin air,

condenses and

streams the heavens with vapor trails.
⁵⁹

In recommending Koenig for a Legion of Merit Award, Wyler noted that his “superlative commentary and the ideas expressed in it” were largely responsible for the success of the film.
⁶⁰

Koenig completed the script on November 18, 1943—the same date the animation work was completed. The dubbing was finished on December 23. A number of different titles were suggested after “25 Missions” was dropped, including “Germany through a Bombsight,” “Round Trip to Wilhelmshaven,” “25,000 Feet over Germany,” and “To Wilhelmshaven and Back.” The nickname of Captain Morgan's B-17,
Memphis Belle
, was finally chosen.

The film's opening depicts the crews of a variety of Flying Fortresses and other bombers as they prepare for and take off on a bombing mission over Wilhelmshaven, Germany. Wyler turns this panoramic vision into a personal, human story by focusing on the crew of the
Memphis Belle
, who will be flying their twenty-fifth mission for the U.S. Eighth Air Force. Regulations require that airmen who successfully complete twenty-five missions be returned to the United States to train other aircrews for service in the European theater. The entire base is aware of the mission's importance to the
Belle
's crew, and this air of expectancy gives the film a certain suspense and poignancy. The story of the bombing run is framed by opening and closing segments on the ground, thus establishing a cadence for the air sequences, which were photographed by Wyler (uncredited), William Clothier, and Harold Tannenbaum.

The film opens with a jarring juxtaposition. A series of quick shots of the English countryside—cows grazing in a field, a farmhouse, a church, and the church cemetery—is followed by the booming, baritone voice of the narrator (Eugene Kern), intoning, “This is a battlefront.” We then see shots of bomber planes in wheat fields and, in one instance, nestled in the foreground with a church in the background. By projecting these incongruous images, Wyler immediately establishes the desecration of the pastoral world he so meticulously detailed in the first part of
Mrs. Miniver.
⁶¹
He repeats the effect when the planes are about to take off, again intercutting shots of the countryside—now shorter in duration—with rapid cuts from bomber to bomber or to different parts of the plane, including an extreme close-up of the nose. This montage of disparate images is accompanied by a repetition and variation of the narration:

This is a battlefront.

Like no other in this or any other war.

No monster armies.

No booming cannon.

Only the roaring engine sound

Of the bombers pounding through

The quiet English countryside.

This is an air front!

The film then follows the routine of preparing for a bombing mission. Wyler spends time focusing on the bombs themselves, offering close-ups of some of the unwieldy explosives and the “hauling job” as they are loaded onto the planes. (Here, the film almost has the feel of an antiwar document.) Next, the crews are briefed, they board the planes, and the planes take off. These procedural scenes, however, are interrupted by an animated sequence—a technique that Wyler would use more extensively in
Thunderbolt
—showing how the raid is organized and detailing the routes of the various planes. We then see the planes flying higher in the sky, the formation of ice on the windows, and the crews' resort to oxygen masks.

The depiction of the bombing raid itself—during which the planes have to dodge bursts of flak—and the point-of-view shots—looking outside the planes as they approach their targets and offering views of other planes and the positions of machine guns—are remarkable. Because of the authenticity of shots like these,
Memphis Belle
is among the best documentaries of the war. Equally absorbing is the sequence taken inside the
Belle
as the crewmen fight off German planes on the way back to base. Here, Wyler dubs in dialogue between crew members over their interphones as they track enemy planes, followed by the sound of machine guns. There is even a shot of a stricken American plane, billowing with smoke as it falls from the sky.

Wyler then cuts from the aerial action to the crews on the ground, who are “sweating it out” as they wait for the planes to return. He shows them playing games, such as matching pennies, and then their growing suspense as they anxiously search the sky. Karel Reisz writes that in these sequences, the “full psychological tension is brought home with remarkable power.” He also notes that in the aftermath of the landing, which includes shots of exhausted airmen—one even kneels to kiss the ground—Wyler achieves a “spontaneous, unaffected realism which is to be found nowhere else in his work.”
⁶²
The film concludes with the crew of the
Belle
being welcomed back after their final mission, followed by a visit from the king and queen, who honor and decorate them.

Memphis Belle
was an enormous success. When Wyler showed it to Roosevelt at the White House, the president's eyes filled with tears and he told Wyler, “This has to be shown right away, everywhere.”
⁶³
Over the next few days, Wyler screened the film numerous times, showing it to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson; to Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall; and to the head of military espionage, Colonel “Wild Bill” Donovan. Bosley Crowther's review in the
New York Times
was printed on the front page— the first time in the newspaper's history that a film review was deemed worthy of such prominence.
⁶⁴

The film was also a financial success for Paramount, which released it nationally. In a confidential memo to Wyler, Darryl Zanuck noted that the film was a hit “because it is primarily entertainment.” He went on to say, “If the War Department is going to release films to the general public, and I'm sure they are, then a constructive lesson should be learned from
MEMPHIS BELLE
. Documentaries will only be played by exhibitors and enjoyed by the public if they contain
entertainment
. You cannot ask the public to pay good money to receive a lecture no matter how vital the lecture happens to be.”
⁶⁵

Zanuck also wanted Wyler to direct the film version of Moss Hart's popular stage play
Winged Victory
, which was intended to do for the Air Corps what Irving Berlin's
This Is the Army
was doing for the infantry. It also bore some similarities to
Memphis Belle
. Like Wyler's film, the play's title refers to the name of an actual plane flying combat missions, and the story follows the fortunes of three cadets from different parts of the country through their Air Corps training to an island in a combat zone in the South Pacific. Wyler, however, decided to pass on the project. He wired Hart in Beverly Hills, “Finally saw ‘Winged Victory' last night. It is a magnificent show and you can all be proud of such a wonderful job and a really great contribution. I too am proud that you asked me to direct the picture…. As for me, I want to make more documentary films along the lines of the one you saw and am presently making efforts to follow this impulse.”
⁶⁶
Two days later, he wired Zanuck: “I know you will make a great picture of Winged Victory and I just want to wish you good luck on it. Someday let us do a real bang up job together and not just stop to scare each other. If the first two times didn't take maybe the third time will.”
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