Fortress (2012) on Netflix
The B-17F Lucky Lass flies from Algeria in 1943 with an Irish-American crew. It loses its commander over Gerbini, and co-pilot Michael Schmidt must win over the crew under Wally McAllister.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb5.0/102,284 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes40%
Trailer
Plot summary
At Navrin, Algeria, in 1943, the B-17F Lucky Lass flies with the 99th Bombardment Group, whose crews count the 25 missions that will send them home and the odds against surviving them. A raid on Gerbini leaves the bomber badly damaged and kills the pilot called Pops and both waist gunners. Wally McAllister takes command of the aircraft, and co-pilot Michael Schmidt reports to him alongside two new waist gunners, Tom and Oliver. The Irish-American crew celebrates its return to flight status around a still that flight engineer Burt has rigged from aviation fuel, but Michael holds back from the drinking and the food, and Wally urges him to make more of an effort with the men.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Fortress (2012)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Unable to afford any real B-17 bombers, either from private collections or museums, the low-budget filmmakers built their main effects shot from a scaled-up hobby kit: they bought a 1:28 scale Guillow's balsa wood model plane and enlarged it into a 1:1 scale mock-up, then jostled the fuselage on a wooden frame resting on scrap tires to fake turbulence for the actors.
- The filmmakers' closing-credits joke that "No B-17s were hurt in the making of this film" was literally true: the production's low budget meant it could not afford to use any of the surviving real B-17 Flying Fortresses held in private collections or museums.
- The real Allied bombing campaign the film depicts was staggering in scale: its roughly 110,000 sorties over Rome cost 600 aircraft and 3,600 aircrew lives, with 60,000 tons of bombs dropped across 78 days before the city fell.
