THE COLD BLUE chronicles the men of the 8th Air Force who flew mission, after suicidal mission, during the Second World War.
In Select Cinemas Nationwide May 23 Only.
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Extraordinary, never before seen color footage shot by William Wyler, one of the world’s greatest directors, puts you 30,000 feet over Nazi Germany, battling killer flak, enemy fighters and 60 degrees below zero temperatures. Now you can fly alongside the last remaining heroes who flew, who fought, who won -- the men who might just have saved the world.
In 1943, William Wyler, one of Hollywood’s most renowned and versatile directors, went to Europe to document the ongoing air war against Germany. While filming the documentary THE MEMPHIS BELLE: A STORY OF A FLYING FORTRESS, he shot footage on 8th Air Force bases in England, and on bombing missions over Europe. Wyler flew actual combat missions on B-17’s – and one of his three cinematographers was killed during one mission.
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Incredibly, all of the raw color footage Wyler shot for THE MEMPHIS BELLE was recently discovered deep in the vaults of the National Archives, and a new film has been constructed out of the material.
THE COLD BLUE is a meditation on youth, war and trauma, and stands as a tribute to the men of the 8th Air Force who flew mission after suicidal mission in the Second World War, as well as to one of the world’s great filmmakers. Nine surviving Army Air Corps veterans were interviewed in the summer of 2017, and their voices take us through the harrowing world that Wyler and his cameramen captured in the summer of 1943.
In the 75 years since THE MEMPHIS BELLE’s release, (April, 1944) copies have deteriorated, and laboratory scratches inflicted on the original negatives have remained. In 2018, William Wyler’s original 16-millimeter footage was located and digitally restored.
Over 500 individual shots were exactly re-positioned over the original soundtrack. This heralds a new kind of restoration – where a film is literally recut from scratch, while preserving the exact content of the original – allowing viewers to see THE MEMPHIS BELLE with pictorial clarity and vibrant colors like never before.
In Select Cinemas Nationwide May
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