Reggiane Falco in Never So Few

Lyle · 7 September 2007, 08:14 PM

I don't know if this is the place to put this, but...

Just saw for the first time today "Never so Few" with Frank Sinatra and Steve McQueen--not a bad film! There is a scene where they are shooting up a Japanese airfield in Jeeps, and the planes substituted for Zeros are in fact Reggiane Re 2000s. It didn't really bother me they weren't A6Ms but that they were actually destroying the planes for the film! Please someone tell me these were mockups and not original fighters.
Thanks, Lyle

Sreiko · 7 September 2007, 09:51 PM

Did not know for this film...

Lyle · 11 September 2007, 08:07 PM

Sreiko,
You might want to read some of the commentary about this film--seems it was rather daring for its time. And even though it has a few members of the "Rat Pack" in it, it's not offensively self-congratulating as in some of their other films.
My only guess for this is that they had a few Reggianes that were captured and then simply disposed of for this film. Since they resemble either Zeros or Nakajima Franks in a superficial manner, they got painted up with the Hinomarus and then blown up. I think this is a tragic end for some rare warplanes, just for a damm movie!

Never So Few (1959)

Rat Pack - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Csaba Becze · 17 September 2007, 09:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lyle

Sreiko,
You might want to read some of the commentary about this film--seems it was rather daring for its time. And even though it has a few members of the "Rat Pack" in it, it's not offensively self-congratulating as in some of their other films.
My only guess for this is that they had a few Reggianes that were captured and then simply disposed of for this film. Since they resemble either Zeros or Nakajima Franks in a superficial manner, they got painted up with the Hinomarus and then blown up. I think this is a tragic end for some rare warplanes, just for a damm movie!

Never So Few (1959)

Rat Pack - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

yay, you just struck my heart with this info, the Re.2000's most important user was Hungary, but not a single Hungarian one survived the war, what a wastage