Thunderbolt (1947) User Reviews

Memorial to The Jug

[robertguttman · 8/10 · 2 April 2017]

William Wyler began work on this film during 1944 as a counterpoint to his better-known film about the 8th Air Force, "Memphis Belle". While the latter concerned the strategic bombing campaign carried out by long-range, multi-engine bombers, the subject of "Thunderbolt" was tactical missions flown by single-engine, single-seat fighter-bombers. This was a very different war from that depicted in "Memphis Belle". For one thing, while strategic bomber crews could expect to be rotated home after completing 25 missions, the fighter-bomber pilots were flying literally hundreds of missions, frequently carrying out several during the course of a single day.

The film chronicles a brief period with one of several fighter-bomber groups based on the island of Corsica, about 60 miles west of the Italian mainland. Incidentally, this was the same island where Joseph Heller was based, and which inspired him to write his famous novel, "Catch-22". The only difference is that "Thunderbolt" was not filmed with a Medium Bomber Group, such as Heller served in, but with a Fighter-Bomber Group.

The fighter-bombers featured in the film are P-47s, to which the Army Air Force gave the emotive name of "Thunderbolt". However, to those who flew them, the P-47 was invariably known as "The Jug", partly due to it's rotund shape, but more especially as a contraction of the word "Juggernaut". For a Juggernaut was precisely what the P-47 was. The Jug was the largest single-seat fighter to serve during WW-II. It carried eight 12.7-mm machine guns along with a heavy load of bombs or rockets, and was capable of bringing it's pilot home after absorbing a considerable amount of battle damage. Unlike any other fighters of that time the Jug had an air-cooled engine, which meant that it's pilot did not have to worry about a liquid cooling system that was vulnerable to damage from enemy fire. Because of those characteristics the Jug came into it's own in the sort of low-level ground-attack missions shown in "Thunderbolt". In fact years later, when they began flying similar ground attack missions in Korea, a lot of veteran pilots regretted the fact that the Air Force had seen fit to scrap all of it's Jugs after WW-II ended.

"Thunderbolt" does not glamorize the lives of these fighter-bomber personnel. The narration is as terse as the subject matter. It was a brutal war, and that brutality is not watered down. To the men of the Fighter-Bomber Group this was merely a day-to-day job, with the difference that the working men shown in the film did not always live to see the next day. However, the film does go out of it's way to explain exactly what it was that they were trying to accomplish, and why it mattered. It is interesting to reflect that The Big Picture was something many of the members of the Fighter-Bomber Group probably did not entirely understand at the time. In short, these aircraft were engaged in cutting Italian road and rail communications in order to prevent the movement of war material to the German Army, so that the Allied Armies could break the stalemate in the mountains of Southern Italy. The mere fact that the stalemate was broken is proof of how effective the air campaign shown in the film actually was.

Ancient history

[nickenchuggets · 8/10 · 22 August 2021]

Thunderbolt is a film by William Wyler that suffered basically the same fate as the Frank Capra film "Here Is Germany", meaning that it was released at a time when everyone was eager to forget world war 2. Originally recorded in 1944 during the allied campaign in italy, Thunderbolt is a kind of documentary that follows the US 12th Air Force and the methods they use to destroy nazi supply routes responsible for enforcing the Gustav Line and the city of Anzio. The Gustav Line was a series of defensive structures and machine gun nests built across italy by the germans in order to prevent american forces from moving north. This made it very difficult for the US forces to do anything because the mountainous spine that runs through the italian peninsula made a perfect natural defensive barrier. The film goes over one of the most effective weapons the americans had during the campaign in italy, which was the Republic p-47 Thunderbolt. When it first flew, the p-47 was the largest and heaviest single engined plane in the world, and contains an insanely powerful pratt and whitney r-2800 engine. It may be large, but the plane was deceptively fast, and was superior to most german planes at high altitudes. It was also better in a dive because of its weight. With its eight .50 caliber browning m2 machine guns, it could rip its way through any plane it was likely to encounter. Lloyd Bridges narrates the film, which is essentially a bunch of clips edited together that detail how the p-47s flew mission after mission against the germans, and all of it is in technicolor. This is important because color footage of world war 2 aerial combat is not as common as you think. You can fully appreciate the paint schemes on the various planes as well. The film doesn't have much in the way of a storyline. It's the second world war and that's all you can really say. They do however go over how cameras were installed in many areas of the planes, such as in the cockpit, under the wings, and even the small recesses the wheels retract into upon takeoff. Before all this takes place, the program begins with an intro featuring James Stewart, who had to contextualize world war 2 for the audiences by calling it "ancient history." This film was released only 2 years later in 1947, but many people were (understandably) sick of the war by then and James had to take that into account. It's also interesting to note that he commanded planes during the war as a colonel and is the highest-ranking hollywood actor who was in the military. In addition to its portrayal of actual p-47 missions, Thunderbolt also shows how the pilots live at their base, located on the island of Corsica off the coast of italy. Even crashes are shown. The film ends with the allies liberating Rome two days before d-day on June 4, 1944. The war in italy comes to an end, and the surrender of Hitler's ally doesn't take him by surprise. For what it is, Thunderbolt is an interesting film simply because it is real and none of it is staged. Sadly, this was the film that marked the beginning of the end for Wyler's hearing, as it didn't return one day after he returned from filming footage for a plane mission. Before this film could be edited, the war was over and the public lost interest in films relating to it. Two years later, the film was finally released by a company called Monogram. If it was distributed earlier, it would have been much more successful. If only it were that easy.

Interesting war-time documentary

[Red-Barracuda · 6/10 · 15 November 2013]

The setting is the Italian Campaign in World War Two. More specifically this is about a series of planned air strikes carried out using the P-47 Thunderbolt bombers launched from Corsica in 1944 that went under the codename Operation Strangle. The idea was to destroy the bridges, train tracks and vehicles on the roads at the narrowest section of the Italian peninsula, which in effect would cut off supplies to the German army located in the South of that country, allowing the Allies to advance big distances north.

Like other wartime documentaries such as Attack in the Pacific (1944) this film shares similar strengths and weaknesses. On the one hand, it's obviously very raw, one-sided and propagandist to an extent. But on the other hand, it has a lot of fascinating real footage. This included planes fitted out with multi-camera set ups involved in the missions. We witness attacks on various targets which show pretty clearly the dangers involved. This also includes some indiscriminate bombings, where farmhouses seem to have been routinely blown up in case they were holding explosives, etc. We also see footage of the real men involved which adds an extra poignancy. You will get a more detailed overview of events in a documentary made nowadays but there is still some invaluable footage here. And it was a very important campaign to the overall war effort, so it's good to see it being documented for that reason alone.

Excellent for aviation lovers and also realists

[greghm · 6/10 · 13 May 2019]

As a private pilot, I really liked the aviation scene and the P47 is such an ugly impressive plane.

Great scenes to see in colour.

I am particularly shocked by the way the strafing was done. What's the point of shooting fields, cattle's or trains? There were probability civilians in it. Can't be Huns everywhere.

Ground Attack.

[rmax304823 · 6/10 · 18 December 2015]

It's a pretty brutal picture of the pilots of the P-47s that flew out of Corsica on ground attack missions to the Italian mainland. There are reasons why it shouldn't have been shown at home. American boys injured, crashing and dying; barns and auxiliary buildings blown up just in case they might be harboring something inimical to our interests. I don't know if it would have been stifled or not. John Huston had all sorts of problems with his "Battle of San Pietro" because it showed American dead being folded into mattress covers.

That it WAS, in fact, made during the war is reflected in the sometimes bitter commentary, suggesting that the Italians and Germans deserved everything they got. There are some "good Germans" on Corsica, followed by a shot of a dilapidated graveyard.

It's all color footage. We follow the young men around as they get out of bed and prepare themselves for another mission. The narration, by Lloyd Bridges, explains what's going on in a clipped, hypermasculine way. "Time for the briefing. Don't know what mission it is. Don't always care." The maps and associated graphics are simple enough for a child to understand.

The missions involved bombing, rocket launching, and strafing, and the P-47 appears to have been built for it. It was a huge, powerful, fast single-engine, single-seat fighter that could carry an enormous load of ordinance and could take a punishing amount of damage. It carried eight .50 caliber machine guns, and we see a good deal of strafing from the gun cameras. A line of spurts tracks a target and envelopes it in dust. A shot, not shown here, that I've seen only once, has a hapless French farmer on a cart galloping his horse down a country road. Cart, farmer, and horse disappear in the cloud. And what carries much of the impact is not the farmer being killed, because we've seen humans shot and killed so often we've been desensitized. It's the horse, the poor innocent horse.

There is another documentary about a pilot, Quentin Annenson, who flew P-47s in the European theater. Annenson narrates the film himself in his quiet Minnesota accent. It's longer, more personal, more detailed, and utterly gripping.

Why the truth is always better.

[cmfarrar · 10/10 · 16 July 2001]

Often times film making from the war slips into propaganda and flag waving. This film instead shows the cold hard truth of a fighter group working out of Corsica in 1944. The personal, humanized glimpses of real men instead of lantern jawed actors as they go on about their days, living their daily lives worrying about who won't come back. The shooting style is from on board cameras from several points on the planes and shows so many real mission realities from a normal fighter sweep over Italy including coldly shooting up innocent farmhouses in search of one that's not so innocent and plowing any thing that moves in the daylight.

At some point as you watch this you go through so many emotions from the shock of realizing just how young these pilots are to being mystified about how they can be so cold as they light up the Italian country side to a sad understanding as director William Wyler shows you what would never be shown in a Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" movies, the charred body of a Jug pilot being pulled from the burning wreckage of his fighter with a hook. The end scene of the pilots and crews falling over drunk makes complete sense.

This film is much more poignant than Wyler's later film "Memphis Belle" which while good shows the touch of war time censors. Released in 1945, after the war in Europe was over, "Thunderbolt" drives home the very human

costs of war.

Good WW2

[Michael_Elliott · 26 February 2008]

Thunderbolt (1947)

*** (out of 4)

WW2 documentary directed by John Sturges and William Wyler with an added introduction from James Stewart. The documentary covers the P-47 Thunderbolt pilots whose mission was to knock out all the train tracks and bridges throughout Corsica, Italy so that the German's couldn't get any supplies. Sturges and Wyler put twelve different cameras on the planes so there's a lot of terrific ariel footage of the bombings, which is quite impressive. I don't think the documentary plays out too well today because we see things getting bombed even though the pilots aren't sure if it's the Germans or perhaps civilians. There's also some footage of what the pilots do when they're not working but the documentary ends on a downnote as some of the men in the crew never made it back home. The film's biggest problem is the narration, which is so slow that it can't keep up with all the action going on in the movie. Lloyd Bridges provides the voice of one of the pilots.

Too technical for me

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 28 September 2015]

"Thunderbolt" is a 42-minute documentary that was made shortly after World War II. There are some big names associated with this project such as James Stewart, Lloyd Bridges, William Wyler or John Sturges. It is about airplanes during the days of war and how American pilots were good enough to make a lasting impact thanks to ability and technology. Sometimes, it also gets concrete in terms of particular strikes during these days of war. I myself am more interested in the political aspects of these dark days than in technical factors. Also, this film got a tad too patriotic occasionally for my taste. It is not a bad film by any means and can be informative if you have an interest in the subject, but it's just such a particular area that most probably won't. All in all, I was not impressed watching this.

Informative WW2 Documentary

[bellabanana93 · 9/10 · 28 October 2017]

It's an honest an informative documentary. Rather than telling people want they want to hear, this documentary does an excellent job of showing people what it was like for the pilots as they try to cut off food, supplies, and reinforcements to the German forces. The documentary shows great images of what is happening along with a narration to give you more information about what they are doing and why they are doing it. The narrator explains some of the thoughts ans feelings that the pilots have and what expectations people have of them. Overall, it's a solid non-propaganda documentary of the war.

Superb documentary

[grantss · 9/10 · 14 April 2018]

A documentary series on the operations of the 57th Fighter Group in 1944. Stationed in Corsica, their missions largely consisted of low-level attacks on the Italian mainland, far behind the frontline. Their targets were German supplies and the infrastructure carrying it. This was part of Operation Strangle, the idea of which was to weaken the German front-line forces through depriving them of supplies, thus helping the Allied offensive through Italy. The 57th Fighter Group flew one of the greatest fighter-bombers of the war, the iconic Republic P-47 Thunderbolt.

Superb documentary, directed by famed Hollywood director William Wyler (with John Sturges as co-director). Wyler's previous contribution to the Allied war effort was the equally-superb "The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress".

Through clever placement of cameras on the Thunderbolts - behind the pilot looking forward, in the instrument panel looking at the pilot, in the wings, under the wings, in the undercarriage bay - we get a unique and illuminating perspective of the missions the 57th Fighter Group flew. Captures well the essence of their operations, and the dangers.

The human side is well told - we see the pilots during their down time, learn something about them and understand how they lived and the rigours they went through.

On that note, the movie is quite unique for a wartime documentary in that it shows the horrors of war. We see Allied casualties, including the charred remains of a P-47 pilot whose plane crashed.

Wyler himself was one of those casualties, suffering total deafness due to filming much of the action from a noisy B-25 bomber.

Unfortunately, WW2 ended before Wyler managed to have the movie released. It ended up only being released in 1947.

You can tell this wasn't released during the war.

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 24 September 2015]

This film is introduced by Jimmy Stewart and part of the narration is provided by Lloyd Bridges. It shows the duties of a fighter group-- P-47 pilots whose job it is to blow the crap out of railroads, roads and targets of opportunity in order to choke off supplies to German troops in Southern Italy.

"Thunderbolt" was made in 1944 or 1945 (the film says 1944 and IMDb says '45) but it wasn't released until 1947. You can actually tell it wasn't released during the war because some aspects of this documentary probably wouldn't have done a lot to stir up the folks at home with patriotic zeal. This is because the documentary shows a few things that might have discouraged the audiences--such as one of the American planes crashing and killing the pilot. Also, there were quite a few VERY grisly corpses--things that I doubt that they would have wanted to show civilians. For the most part, films shown to the public were pretty sanitized...and this one wasn't. Now this is NOT a complaint- -in fact it makes this a much better and more realistic film. My only complaint about the film is the terrible quality of all the color footage. It's very degraded and muddy and could use conservation.

An enjoyable live action combat film

[oscar-35 · 20 September 2012]

*Spoiler/plot- 1947, A film showing the operations of a fighter/bomber air wing group flying from Sardinia to Italy to support the Italian Allied campaign.

*Special Stars- Director: John Sturges. Narrator: Robert Lowery. Pilot's voice: Lloyd Bridges

*Theme- Airpower is crucial in operations.

*Trivia/location/goofs- Filmed in Sardinia. Look for the best film representations of Christmas holidays celebrated in the rear areas by troops of the WW2 period.

*Emotion- An enjoyable documentary made up of live action combat or newsreel footage. It gives you the tone and feel of the times for WW2 fighter pilots. However, there are the unpleasant shots of injured Americans with some blatant racist language. But it is extremely educational and does what a narrative simulated war film can do.