Comments on: Hollywood’s Representation of Naval Aviation: Frank W. “Spig” Wead and John Ford’s “The Wings of Eagles” (1957) http://blog.nasm.si.edu/aviation/hollywood%e2%80%99s-representation-of-naval-aviation-frank-w-%e2%80%9cspig%e2%80%9d-wead-and-john-ford%e2%80%99s-the-wings-of-eagles-1957/ Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:35:36 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Dominick Pisano http://blog.nasm.si.edu/aviation/hollywood%e2%80%99s-representation-of-naval-aviation-frank-w-%e2%80%9cspig%e2%80%9d-wead-and-john-ford%e2%80%99s-the-wings-of-eagles-1957/comment-page-1/#comment-56937 Dominick Pisano Tue, 08 May 2012 15:44:32 +0000 http://blog.nasm.si.edu/?p=4135#comment-56937 The National Air and Space Museum has made a deliberate decision not to collect feature films made in Hollywood on aviation and aerospace-related topics. Some of these may be in found archival repositories like the Library of Congress’s Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division in Washington, DC,and the Berkeley Art Museum-Pacific Film Archives at the University of California, Berkeley. The Pacific Film Archives has done a number of film programs over the years on aviation, most recently “Dizzy Heights: Silent Cinema and Life in the Air” (February 23-26, 2012).

The Film Archives collection of the National Air and Space Museum contains more than 20,000 catalogued motion pictures of a documentary nature.
http://airandspace.si.edu/research/arch/collections/filmarchives.cfm

Many popular aviation and space films are now available for home viewing, See http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/ for synopses.

]]> By: Doug Ramsdell http://blog.nasm.si.edu/aviation/hollywood%e2%80%99s-representation-of-naval-aviation-frank-w-%e2%80%9cspig%e2%80%9d-wead-and-john-ford%e2%80%99s-the-wings-of-eagles-1957/comment-page-1/#comment-43292 Doug Ramsdell Sat, 07 Jan 2012 15:00:32 +0000 http://blog.nasm.si.edu/?p=4135#comment-43292 Thanks for posting this! I look forward to seeing “The Wings of Eagles” based on your post, and it also occurs to me that you folks in Air & Space are uniquely qualified to come up with a list (hopefully with explanatory detail!) of “Must-see” aviation films, and I for one would be happy if you did.

Further to Mr. Stalter’s point, a friend recently made me aware of the Imperial War Museum’s collection of WWII films made as featurettes, newsreel supplements and short subjects for both the military and the general public. Does NASM maintain collections of that sort of thing, or are they more likely to end up at the Library of Congress?

]]> By: Rich stalter http://blog.nasm.si.edu/aviation/hollywood%e2%80%99s-representation-of-naval-aviation-frank-w-%e2%80%9cspig%e2%80%9d-wead-and-john-ford%e2%80%99s-the-wings-of-eagles-1957/comment-page-1/#comment-43167 Rich stalter Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:49:54 +0000 http://blog.nasm.si.edu/?p=4135#comment-43167 Very interesting. Over the years there have been several excellent movies about naval aviation. Some of these include: Dive Bomber, Flattop, Men of the Fighting Lady, Bridges at Toko-Ri and Top Gun. The Air Force also used to use Hollywood to dramatize its role in aviation history. Some of these included: Strategic Air Command, Toward the Unknown, On the Threshold of Space (very rare), Bombers B-52, X-15 and a long list of World War II related epics. Speaking of aviation films, I’ve often assumed that the NASM has a colletion of these and other aerospace related films. Is that true? Rather the films are fact or fiction, it is a great way to chronicle our obsession with flight.

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