Enola Gay: The Men, the Missn, the Atomic Bomb (1980) - Movie | Moviefone

Contents:

• ENOLA GAY: THE MEN, THE MISSN, THE ATOMIC BOMB
• ENOLA GAY
• WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ENOLA GAY AFTER IT DROPPED THE ATOMIC BOMB
• ENOLA GAY: THE MEN, THE MISSN, THE ATOMIC BOMB (1980)
• ENOLA GAY AND THE ATOMIC BOMBG OF JAPAN
• THE HISTORY CHANNEL PRENTS - ENOLA GAY (2005)
• CONTROVERSY OVER THE ENOLA GAY EXHIBN
• ENOLA GAY: THE MEN, THE MISSN, THE ATOMIC BOMB - 1980 2-DISC SET! WH GREGORY HARRISON, BILLY CRYSTAL, KIM DARBY, PATRICK DUFFY AND ROBERT PE

ENOLA GAY: THE MEN, THE MISSN, THE ATOMIC BOMB

It has bee urban legend that he went sane bee of remorse followg Gay was the name of Colonel Tibbets' mother. Raymond-andreOct 19, 2009Contribute to this pageSuggt an ed or add missg ntentBy what name was Enola Gay: The Men, the Missn, the Atomic Bomb (1980) officially released Canada English? The story of Colonel Pl Tibbets and the crew of the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, is reunted this three-hour movie adapted by Jam Poe and Millard Kfman om the bt-sellg book.

The Enola Gay is a B-29 Superfortrs, which pilot Pl Tibbets named after his mother, and which had been stripped of everythg but the necsi, so as to be thoands of pounds lighter than an ordary plane of that make.

ENOLA GAY

While did not drop the bomb on Nagasaki, the Enola Gay did take flight to get data on the weather the lead-up to the send strike on Japan. In the aftermath of World War II, the Army Air Forc flew the Enola Gay durg an atomic tt program the Pacific; was then livered to be stored an airfield Arizona before beg flown to Illois and transferred to the Smhsonian July 1949.

But even unr the ctody of the mm, the Enola Gay remaed at an air force base Texas.

The Commtee for the Rtoratn and Display of the Enola Gay now has 9, 000 signatur of prott. Adams, who is leavg his job after 10 relatively ntroversy-ee years, sent back a three-page answer stiffly turng down her requt for the Enola Gay. Demonstrators prott at the Enola Gay exhib at the the Smhsonian Natnal Air and Space Mm's Steven F.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ENOLA GAY AFTER IT DROPPED THE ATOMIC BOMB

And as long as is on display, the qutns rais are likely to ntue — after all, they have been wh the Enola Gay sce first beme a hoehold name.

ENOLA GAY b two pellg, topflight documentari that tell the remarkable story of Ameri's cisn to forever alter the urse of history. ENOLA GAY: RAIN OF RUIN puts you si the ckp of the historic B-29 Superfortrs bomber whose vastatg payload helped brg about the end of WWII.

It’s nsired by many to be one of the first exampl of gay imagery film, and a remr that homosexual reprentatn has been wh the medium om the very begng. That clip appears The Celluloid Closet, Rob Epste and Jefey Friedman’s documentary based on Vo Rso’s study of homosexualy the movi, along wh untls exampl of how gay characters showed up, per narrator Lily Toml, as “somethg to lgh at, or somethg to py, or even somethg to fear. Some have been documents of a moment or era of gay history, some have been ed as rrectiv to s of negative clichés, and others have simply celebrated the fact that the movi n be queer, they’re here, get ed to .

ENOLA GAY: THE MEN, THE MISSN, THE ATOMIC BOMB (1980)

It is nowhere near a prehensive ndown of every great movie to feature out-and-proud hero and villas, or a queer sensibily, or even jt visible (and/or risible) exampl of gay life cema; we uld have easily ma this list twice as long. The performanc are staggerg: Al Paco as the ignom Roy Cohn; Jefey Wright is the sharp-wted gay nurse who tends to him; Mary-Louise Parker as a pill-poppg hoewife wed to a closeted Mormon; Emma Thompson as an imper (and sometim sassy) angel; and Meryl Streep four rol, cludg the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg. Yet the film remas one of the first ank big-stud treatments of uncloseted gay and bisexual men, as follows eight iends (and one htler) who’ve gathered a New York Cy apartment to celebrate a birthday party.

L like “show me a happy homosexual and I’ll show you a gay rpse” will still make you crge, but the film remas a time psule of a moment when men were nflicted wh how they “got” to be gay. It works bt as a signpost and a throwback — jt ask the all-gay st who starred the a major Broadway revival, or Ryan Murphy, who’s adaptg the cematic remake as a savage, ic perd piece for a new generatn. It was still nsired a bad reer move for a movie star to play a gay role 2005, and Hollywood’s track rerd was ls than stellar when me to treatg homosexual romanc wh the same pth as heterosexual on (if emed f to tackle such stori at all).

Where so many gay love stori are tged wh vlence and sorrow (see: Brokeback Mounta), this one is pure exhilaratn. A page-to-screen take on Vo Rso’s semal book regardg LGBTQ reprentatn (and misreprentatn) the movi, Rob Epste and Jefey Friedman’s documentary prents the perfect show-and-tell plement to the late scholar’s work — you n lerally see the evolutn of cematic homosexualy as progrs om punchle to social pundry, sikick-and-stock-villa fodr to queers beg the hero of their own stori. Filmmakers, actors, and screenwrers weigh on the joy of seeg gay characters visible, if sometim veiled, on film, as well as the way Hollywood aid perpetratg negative stereotyp.

ENOLA GAY AND THE ATOMIC BOMBG OF JAPAN

And clips of everythg om silent two-reelers to Osr-wng blockbters monstrate how the movi have reflected, reacted, and eventually e to broan public attus about gay life. To say that William Friedk’s thriller about a serial killer targetg gay men New York was ntroversial would be puttg dly: Village Voice lumnist Arthur Bell (whose verage of murrs the Wt Village bar scene was a partial spiratn) lled the script “the worst possible nightmare of the most uptight straight”; tablishments that had agreed to operate sudnly whdrew their support; activists dispted filmg at every turn; theaters were picketed; and one massive prott led to a traffic-stoppg s- and arrts. ) But 40 years after Al Paco’s unrver p first stepped to the Mhaft, this lurid exploatn movie has been reclaimed by gay film crics such as Nathan Lee and Melissa Anrson, noticeably for the way prents the late ’70s leather-bar scene wh an almost véré-like sense of observatn.

Mixg herage-drama aspects wh outré postmorn flourish and a heightened sense of homoeroticism, the movie prents the relatnship between the two men as a polil act as much as a romantic one; Edward’s army is refashned as ACT UP-style activists, and the behd-the-scene machatns of Edward’s wife, Isabella (longtime Jarman llaborator Tilda Swton), double as a crique of Bra’s opprsive, historilly strict anti-homosexual laws. Set on the muddy, wdswept moors of Yorkshire, Francis Lee’s but feature follows Johnny (Josh O’Connor), a young gay man leadg a ad-end existence on his fay farm, and Ghehe (Alec Sereanu), a Romanian migrant worker who to help out durg lamb-birthg season.

THE HISTORY CHANNEL PRENTS - ENOLA GAY (2005)

The HIV vis h the gay muny around the same time that the personal mrr h retail shelv — which is one reason David France’s Osr-nomated film about the formatn of activist anizatn groups ACT UP and TAG (Treat Actn Group) has such a shatterg impact.

Told bs and piec over 10 years — and chartg how Pl and Erik tersect and fall apart and tersect aga over time — this romantic drama is startlgly clear-eyed about the stggl of s gay characters to accept themselv as well as their partners.

Blendg readgs of his work wh sequenc of geo men tuxedos dancg and cisg each other (or posg naked), the movie specifilly plac Hugh’ verse a homoerotic ntext; the work of fellow gay wrers Jam Baldw, Essex Hemphill, and Robert Bce Nugent also acpany black-and-whe scen of gay clubs, gay celebri (keep an eye out for Bronski Beat sger Jimmy Sommerville as an angel), gay inography, and gay love. Terence McNally, who died March om plitns related to COVID-19, adapted his own Tony-wng play for director Joe Mantello, and the film is the perfect remr that McNally was one of the great chroniclers of gay love, gay relatnships, and what meant to fd a chosen fay who would support you through good tim and bad. And even though director Leonte Sagan and the film’s -wrer Christa Wsloe toned down some of the more-erotic overton om Wsloe’s play, was still explicly a story about homosexualy that honored the characters’ mutual attractn.

CONTROVERSY OVER THE ENOLA GAY EXHIBN

A heartbreakgly gentle portra of a young man’s very rough life growg up gay Miami’s impoverished Liberty Cy neighborhood, Barry Jenks’ lyril send film, prented three acts, juxtapos moments of credible tenrns between men wh bursts of sual celty.

ENOLA GAY: THE MEN, THE MISSN, THE ATOMIC BOMB - 1980 2-DISC SET! WH GREGORY HARRISON, BILLY CRYSTAL, KIM DARBY, PATRICK DUFFY AND ROBERT PE

Bety alone uld have won this film s Bt Picture Osr; but centerg the kd of life so often overlooked, one where the hurdl to livg openly as a gay man are as high as they n get, beme culture-shiftg. “Gay-htler die” may now seem like a Sundance cliché, but until G Van Sant’s third feature dropped dienc to the sular world of Portland’s street culture, no one had ma a movie that addrsed the subject wh such a mix of poetry and blunt honty.

Ron Peck’s tale of a teacher (Ken Robertson) who hnts London’s gay clubs at night has earned a cult followg for s rare pictn of homosexualy the U. An experimental doc om the legendary filmmaker Barbara Hammer, this llage of personal ttimoni, gay and lbian ephemera, and a profilette of thor Willa Cather is a roundabout mediatn on, per s creator, “a reprsed and margalized history” of queer life the 20th century. And a ltle over an hour, she acplish all that and more — scen of timacy among elrly and biracial same-sex upl will sudnly give way to exploratns of homosexual persecutn Nazi Germany, or one woman’s oral history of tryg to mask her sexual preferenc durg her time the army durg World War II.

It was signed as an urgent polil statement, livered jt as AIDS had begun cimatg the gay muny — those strint speech and preachy monologu rried extra weight as well as doublg as an ASAP ll to actn. It’s a rare dispatch om a regnal gay cema, and one hell of an troductn to one hell of a sgular talent.

Pedro Almodóvar’s filmography is filled wh gay characters, gay love, gay sex, and gay sensibili — you n see his punkish late-Seventi shorts, his mpy farc (Women on the Verge of a Nervo Breakdown), his Hchckian thrillers (Matador, Law of Dire), and his melodramas (Bad Edutn, All About My Mother). The Spanish filmmaker’s latt work, however, don’t jt revolve around an agg, gay movie director (Anton Banras) reflectg on his life — ’s a highly tobgraphil look at s creator’s own relatnship wh cema, sire, and his inty as a queer artist.

The tone slowly but substantially shifts, and you fd yourself already mourng Nick before he’s even gone — a ttament to both Bcemi, one of his earlit rol, and Sherwood’s termatn to prent the emotnal trma suffered by the gay muny as the panmic raged around them.

Yet ’s also part of an unrground-cema tradn that ed taboo-tweakg, gay-subculture imagery, razor-sharp irony, and a refed sense of mp.

The key movie of what would bee known as the “New Queer Cema” (see also Tom Kal’s Swoon and Gregg Araki’s The Livg End), Todd Hayn’ triptych giv the story of a child who murrs an aber and mysterly disappears (“Hero”), a Fifti-style monster movie about a scientist who turns to a hio creature after drkg a “sexualy” potn (“Horror”), and a bold adaptatn of Jean Ge’s love-among-nvicts tale The Miracle of the Rose (“Homo”).

And like his fellow gay filmmakers who’d artistilly e of age a world of AIDS-related afflictn and activism, Hayn’ style of storytellg was nontatnal, somewhat nfsnal, and unabashedly queer, whether he was flirtg wh genre parodi, borrowg TV tabloid sensatnalism, or phg the envelope regardg pictns of same-sex eroticism. ” Yet also serv as a ttament that y, Virgia, unrground gay culture was alive and well and credibly fabulo long before Stonewall served as a flashpot for liberatn, and a wonrful troductn to the pre-RuPl, pre-TV-h-show art of drag.

Followg a Belgian sailor named Querelle (Brad Davis) who’s pulled to port and drifts to dg alg, murr, and a number of sexual liasons, the movie prents s story a style that might be bt scribed as gay exprsnism — a heightened mixture of blatantly phallic archecture, Pierre et Gill’ lor-saturated portraure, and Tom of Fland’s he-man roleplayg fetishism.

(Should you want a primer on the latter’s huge fluence on leather-bar culture and gay eroti, we highly remend the 1991 doc Daddy and the Mcle Amy). Diego (Je Pegorría) is a cultured, Cuban gay man who treats a vourg spoonful of strawberry ice cream like a sexual experience; David (Vladimir Cz) is rigid, cholate-preferrg Communist.