Fighter Attack

Flight Journal, Fall 2003 by Farmer, James H

2. Fighter Attack. Belle & Blade Home Video; www.belleandblade.com; VHS; 89 minutes; $19.98.

Unfortunately, this 1953 full-color "B" movie is currently the only available big-screen dramatization that features the P-47, and that isn't saying much. Much of this low-budget effort was shot in the hills of Southern California with actor Sterling Hayden portraying a downed Jug pilot who fights with and romances the local resistance fighters. A lone, former Training Command P-47G razorback was all the producers had to work with as well as some of the wartime footage from the "Thunderbolt" documentary. To suggest a flight ramp of Jugs, a lowly BT-13 rests in the background painted in P-47 markings. The lone Thunderbolt was completely inoperable; it was towed along the ground to suggest that Hayden was taxiing the aircraft. Enough said.