Sunday, September 25, 2011

Piece of Cake

A BBB Masterpiece theater miniseries from long ago. I got the first two episodes on one DVD from Netflix. It's WWII, with an RAF fighter squadron, a Spitfire squadron, none of your sluggish Hurricanes or bombers; Spitfires, the hottest plane the RAF ever flew.
The squadron moves to France in 1939, settles into a French chateau, and fly the Spitfires off the chateau tennis courts. The Spitfires are real, lovingly maintained and restored to better than new condition. The paint is flawless and glossy, waxed and gleams in the sun. Those Spitfires are in better condition than any of the jet fighters in my USAF unit during the Viet Nam war. The squadron officers dress for dinner, mess dress and take lessons in table manners from the squadron adjutant. In my USAF unit, the pilots went to dinner at the Officer's club in olive drab flight suits. Maintenance officers (like me) turned up in shade 1505 Class B uniforms. I don't think we had a mess dress uniform in the entire country.
The RAF squadron has some real turkeys for officers and gentlemen, the most offensive of which would have be court martialed in USAF. One goes thru a dead man's effects looking for money to pay a gambling debt. That would have led to a lynching in USAF.
The sets, costumes, and airplanes are first class. Too bad the rest of the show, plot, dialog, acting, and characterization is low speed. The actors mumble with strong British accents which renders half the dialog incomprehensible to Yankee viewers.

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