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| The Tuskegee Airmen | |
|---|---|
 DVD Cover art | |
| Genre | Drama History War |
| Teleplay by | |
| Story by |
|
| Directed by | Robert Markowitz |
| Starring | Laurence Fishburne Allen Payne Malcolm-Jamal Warner Courtney B. Vance Andre Braugher Christopher McDonald Daniel Hugh Kelly Mekhi Phifer John Lithgow Cuba Gooding Jr. |
| Music by | Lee Holdridge |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Frank Price |
| Producer | Bill Carraro |
| Cinematography | Ron Orieux |
| Editor | David Beatty |
| Running time | 106 minutes |
| Production companies | HBO Pictures Price Entertainment |
| Budget | $8.5 million (estimated) |
| Original release | |
| Network | HBO |
| Release | August 26, 1995 (1995-08-26) |
The Tuskegee Airmen is a 1995HBO television movie based on the exploits of an actual groundbreaking unit, the first African-American combat pilots in theUnited States Army Air Corps, who fought inWorld War II. The film was directed byRobert Markowitz and starsLaurence Fishburne,Cuba Gooding Jr.,John Lithgow,Courtney B. Vance,Andre Braugher,Malcolm-Jamal Warner,Allen Payne, andMekhi Phifer.
 | This article's plot summarymay betoo long or excessively detailed. Pleasehelp improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise.(July 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
During World War II, Hannibal "Iowa" Lee Jr. travels by train toTuskegee, Alabama for military flight training, as part of a group of African-Americanflight cadet candidates that includes Billy "A-Train" Roberts, Walter Peoples III, and Lewis Johns. Colonel Noel Rogers, the base commander, Major Sherman Joy, director of training, and Second Lieutenant Glenn, a Black pilot, brief the cadets. Rogers speaks on the honor of earning pilots' wings while Major Joy reflects the majority view of white America that African-Americans aren't suitable to serve as military pilots. The trainees discover that many of them are college educated and Walter Peoples vows he will be the top pilot of the group.
Major Joy has the cadets retake the flight exam they took to qualify for the program. Learning Peoples has a commercial pilot license, Joy takes Peoples up in aPT-17 training aircraft and tries to intimidate him with dangerous maneuvers, but Peoples' resolve is not broken. Major Joy explains the retesting to Colonel Rogers, stating his belief the cadets may have cheated to get in the program. Rogers informs Joy that no one scored less than a 95% on the retests.
The cadets begin practical flight training in the PT-17 training aircraft with instructor pilots. Cadet Johns and his instructor are killed when Johns fails to recover from a stall. The crash shakes Cadet Leroy Cappy and others voluntarily leave the program. Cadets Lee and Peoples convince Cappy to stay and the cadets advance to solo flying. Major Joy lets Cadet Lee make several solo flights. When Lieutenant Glenn instructs on air combat, he reveals he had fought in theBattle of Britain with theRoyal Canadian Air Force, downing three Germans and making him the only Army Air Corps officer on the base with combat experience.
Peoples and Lee solo in theAT-6 Texan training plane, and Peoples wins a mock dogfight against Lee. Peoples celebrates with unauthorized aerobatic maneuvers and he's removed from the training program. Peoples pleads for forgiveness to Colonel Rogers and Major Joy to no avail, and to avoid going home in disgrace, Peoples commandeers an AT-6 and kills himself by deliberately crashing it. The cadets argue about Major Joy's tactics. Roberts states that Joy set out to break Peoples and effectively murdered him. Cappy sides with Roberts and feels Major Joy will eventually fail all of them. Lee however refuses to let Major Joy talk him into quitting or derail his dreams of flying.
The cadets graduate with commissions as second lieutenants in the Army Air Corps but aren't deployed to theEuropean theatre due to racist concerns by Congressmen.First LadyEleanor Roosevelt intervenes, inspecting the base and flying with Lee. The ensuing positive press coverage prompts their deployment to North Africa as the 99th Pursuit Squadron. They're relegated to ground-attack missions, until a chance encounter withMesserschmitt Bf 109s shows the Black pilots are capable of successfully engaging in air to air combat. Cappy breaks formation and shoots down one of the Germans, but Cappy is killed in the battle.
A congressional hearing of the House Armed Services Committee hears evidence regarding the Tuskegee Airmen experiment, including charges of incompetence and medical studies claiming that "Negroes are incapable of handling complex machinery." The commanding officer,Benjamin O. Davis persuades the committee their information is largely false, and the 99th Pursuit Squadron joins three new squadrons out of Tuskegee to form the all-black332nd Fighter Group, under his command.
The 332nd deploys toRamitelli, Italy, to fly escort missions forBoeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers, which are experiencing heavy losses. Lee and Billy Roberts sink adestroyer and rescue a straggling B-17. When the bomber's pilot and co-pilot travel to Ramitelli to thank them, the B-17 Captain Butler refuses to believe that black pilots saved them. Roberts is shot down on a later mission while Lee is awarded theDistinguished Flying Cross for sinking the destroyer and promoted to captain. The Tuskegee Airmen are specifically requested for escort for a raid on Berlin when Captain Butler learns that no heavy bombers are lost when the Tuskegee airmen are assigned as escorts.
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Laurence Fishburne | Captain Hannibal "Iowa" Lee Jr.[1] |
| Allen Payne | Cadet Walter Peoples |
| Malcolm-Jamal Warner | Lieutenant Leroy Cappy |
| Courtney B. Vance | Second Lieutenant Glenn |
| Andre Braugher | ColonelBenjamin O. Davis Jr. |
| Christopher McDonald | Major Sherman Joy |
| Daniel Hugh Kelly | Colonel Rogers |
| John Lithgow | Senator Conyers |
| Cuba Gooding Jr. | Lieutenant Billy "A-Train" Roberts |
| Mekhi Phifer | Cadet Lewis Johns |
| Vivica Fox | Charlene |
| Bennet Guillory | Hannibal's father |
| Tim Kelleher | B-17 Lieutenant Wesley |
| Ed Lauter | GeneralStevenson |
| Janet MacLachlan | Hannibal's mother |
| Rosemary Murphy | Eleanor Roosevelt |
| Marco Perella | Colonel Sirca |
| Ned Vaughn | B-17 Captain Butler |
Ottumwa, Iowa, native, Captain Robert W. Williams, a wartime pilot in the U.S. Army Air Corps' "332nd Fighter Group", the all African-American combat unit trained at Moton Field in Tuskegee, Alabama, wrote a manuscript years earlier, and worked with screenwriterT. S. Cook to create a screenplay originally intended for a feature-film project. The plot combined fact and fiction to create an essentially historically accurate drama. Linking up withFrank Price, owner of Price Productions in 1985 finally gained some traction for the project, and when financing was eventually obtained nearly 10 years later, Williams stayed on as co-executive producer with Price as executive producer.[2]Originally intended as aHBO made-for-TV project, the network invested more into the production, a reputed $8.5 million (the largest investment in a telefilm project to date) striving for historical accuracy.[2] Although most of the lead characters were fictitious composites of real pilots, the inclusion ofFirst LadyEleanor Roosevelt and GeneralBenjamin "B.O." Davis was based on actual events.[3] When Roosevelt visitedTuskegee Army Air Field in 1941, she insisted on flying withC. Alfred "Chief" Anderson, the first African American to earn his pilot's license and the first flight instructor of theCivilian Pilot Training Program organized at theTuskegee Institute. She had the photograph of her in a training aircraft with a black pilot at the controls widely circulated. Other than some differences in physical appearance and profile, Andre Braugher's portrayal of "B.O." Davis and his role as the commanding officer pointedly was an accurate depiction of the unit's first commander's personality and character.
Location shooting took place atFort Chaffee, right outside ofFort Smith, Arkansas. The barracks had been used in the filming ofBiloxi Blues (1988), another wartime story. The principal photography also used locations atJuliette, Georgia andMuskogee, Oklahoma, as well as studio work inLos Angeles. A collection of period aircraft includingNorth American T-6 Texans andNorth American P-51 Mustangs was representative of the many types flown by the Tuskegee Airmen. A few authentic P-51 fighter aircraft in appropriate "red tail" colors were employed in the aerial sequences.
In addition, some period gun-ciné films were also used,[2] as were sequences from the films,Memphis Belle (1990) andBattle of Britain (1969). The producers also borrowed a technique used inMemphis Belle by using cutout silhouettes of aircraft to make more aircraft parked at the various airfields apparent. One example of period dialogue that was faithful to the times was Hannibal Lee Jr. (another fictitious composite) singing: "Straighten up..." finished by Billy Roberts (fictional character): "...and fly right." (The catchphrase was derived from the 1944 top-40 hit record,"Straighten Up and Fly Right" by the King Cole Trio led byNat King Cole.)[4]
Although originally released on cable, the HBO feature was shown on multiple repeats and eventually was released as a limited feature in selected theaters. In 2001, a home video/DVD version was also released in both formats. The transfer was done in 1.78:1 aspect ratio, which exactly fills a 16x9 display, and is anamorphically enhanced.[5]
Criticism of the movie was generally focused on clichéd dialogue and slow, stagy scenes, but the overall impression by the public was mostly favorable.
Besides the character ofColonelBenjamin O. Davis Jr. (who is actually among the attendees during the wing-pinning ceremony scene) played byAndre Braugher, no other actual real-life Tuskegee Airmen were portrayed in this film. Other featured Tuskegee Airmen characters are composites of the men with whom Williams served.
At one point, the character Lewis Johns (Mekhi Phifer) recites "Strange Fruit" to the other recruits in their barracks. "Strange Fruit" is a song recorded byBillie Holiday in 1939, inspired by a poem byAbel Meeropol after he witnessed thelynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith.
At the end, the film details the unit's accomplishments: 66 of the 450 Tuskegee Airmen died in battle, they engaged and defeatedMesserschmitt Me 262s, the first operational jet fighters, and they were awarded a total of 850 medals over the course of the war. The credits also note (inaccurately, but a common belief of the time) that the 332nd never lost a single bomber to enemy fighters. This claim is a source ofhistorical controversy. The statement was repeated for many years and not challenged because of the esteem of the Tuskegee Airmen. However, Air Force records and eyewitness accounts later showed that at least 25 bombers were lost to enemy fire.[13][14] This was, however, still an excellent loss-to-enemy fire ratio; the average for other P-51 fighter groups of the Fifteenth Air Force was 46 bombers lost.[15]
