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Amongst the ladies with per­fect early 1960s hair-dos and dresses in a series set in the mid 1940s; and the euca­lypts of South­ern Cali­for­nia appear the epis­odes of 12 O’Clock High

And there is lots of smoking: even by the com­bat pilots in-flight! Maybe cigar­ette com­pan­ies were primary spon­sors of the ori­ginal shows as the screened on US TV? Without a doubt, there are many young Amer­ican fli­ers chas­ing after Eng­lish girls in pubs and the countryside.

Many of the cut-scenes are repeated; both in air and on the ground. These were genu­ine WW2 gun cam­era foot­age and in com­bat shots.

In these stock shots you can see reversed insignia, old USAAF insignia, mix­ture of B-17F and B-17G types. The Ger­man planes are Hud­sons rather than Heinkels, yet the interior of the B-17 seems authentic.

Robert Lans­ing is like a Brigadier-General Super­man who com­mands his B-17 “Piccadilly Lily” with a con­stant sneer and con­sist­ent cool­ness. Nazis in the air, nazis on the ground and evil spies; he wins against them all. Never pro­moted with at least 3 crash land­ings and near death at least four times.

Other bits:

• Hazel Court as com­mon love interest, “Liz”
• Tom Sker­ritt starred as 5 dif­fer­ent char­ac­ters in 5 dif­fer­ent epis­odes. I did not real­ise that he was a com­mon star of 1960s TV Shows.
• Sor­rell Booke, who later played Boss Hogg in the TV ver­sion of Dukes of Hazard
• Fam­ous screen sirens of the 1950s make an appear­ance in indi­vidual epis­odes, with many minutes of women swoon­ing: Dana Wynter (Inva­sion of the Body Snatch­ers), Glynis Johns, Viveca Lind­fors, Australian-born Vic­toria Shaw, Bar­bara Shelley
• Nor­man Fell: was a tail gun­ner dur­ing WW2
• A young Peter Fonda, with superb acting.
• Epis­ode 109, Appoint­ment At Liege: Inno­cent phrases such as “If I could com­mand­eer a Jeep, could you play hookey for an hour and a half?” and “I don’t know. I’ve never run away with any­body before.” <long eye gaz­ing> “you wait here”  (Future 2001: A Space Odys­sey Gary Lock­wood play­ing Major Gus Denver’s sweet lines to Nancy Kovack, play­ing a per­fectly 1960s coiffured weather intel­li­gence Lt Cooper)
  
  
• Sally Keller­man, to star in the later MASH movie, had a repeated role as a Nurse Lt. Typecast?
• Epis­ode 118 Lore­lei. In this spooky epis­ode, a haunted B-17 named Lore­lei returns to UK by itself and con­tin­ues to cause havok. Stars Rip Torn and Bruce Dern: one of four he was in as a bom­bardier. Bruce Dern as Lt Michaels quo­ta­tion on the Lore­lei: “We gonna get together an’ buy this here air­plane. And then we’re gonna get us some matches then we gonna have us a bomber bar-be-que”
• “That’s the thing with loners: they tend to be out­siders try­ing to get back in” (said of Keir Dullea; later to play Dave Bow­man in 2001: A Space Odyssey
• In Epis­ode 124, the future 99 from Get Smart play­ing Lt Betty Cum­ming: Bar­bara Feldon

Onwards to Series 2 and 3, then Combat!

Oh, I love holidays