Aircraft Type in King Kong

[Balloon_Buster]

There's a nice piece on the building of the Helldivers in the book "The Making of King Kong". Turns out there are no extant Helldivers around to use as a pattern. The Curtiss Company no longer exists, and what plans they had were thought to have been turned over to the Smithsonian. Well, the Helldiver plans were not in there. Turns out they were in the American National Archives.

Two "lifesize" models were made, and they were repainted over and over to look like more planes. Of course most of the shots were done with CGI. However, they tried to follow the plans to make these as realistic as possible. But modern materials were used- synthetic material for cotton for example.

Peter Jackson is an early aviation buff, and from what I've read, he now owns the Pfalz from the Blue Max. He's even had it repainted into the colors from that movie.

[Barrett]

Regis Toomey: now there's an old-timey movie name!

The Tophatters emblem was generic in "Dive Bomber" though most of the in-flight stuff was done by VB-3's SB2Us. But there were also Buffalos and assorted types with the same emblem "irregardless" of the side numbers. A lot of the shipboard scenes were shot aboard Enterprise, despite the fact that VB-3 (actually the Black Panthers bearing the "High Hatter" emblem) was a Saratoga squadron.

Then there was Alexis Smith...

And all those N3Ns at NRAB Long Beach. Sigh...makes me plumb homesick. (For the N3N, not Long Beach.)

[James Dietz]

I once talked to Dick Best about this film ( he was aboard the Enterprise when it was shot...Pilots were very impressed when Fred christened their urinal( sadly somewhere beneath several hundred ft of water now..) & Flynn on last day of shoot swan dived ( doved?Divened?) off Flightdeck as a sort of farewell gesture...He also said Halsey( Ship's Captain at the time I was told...) was so pissed at the film makers..remember Mike Curtiz ( certifiable) was director...that he couldn't wait for them to be gone.
We & the Navy can thank them for the best shots of the most colorful period of Nav Aviation ( even tho some a/c had to be retro painted) & some of the birds that would be all gone ( along with their crews in the next year & a half( note to Barrett- No SBDs here yet...)One weeps on what must have been left on the cutting room floor...
p.s. If there was any justice in the AV Art world there would bethe the best paintings of this pre-war era in the Navy..It has sooooooooo much going for it!