{"id":20269,"date":"2020-09-11T01:30:19","date_gmt":"2020-09-11T05:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=20269"},"modified":"2020-09-11T11:15:09","modified_gmt":"2020-09-11T15:15:09","slug":"welcome-to-the-pit-greyhound-2020-u-boats-the-wolfpack-and-b-17-the-flying-fortress-1987","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=20269","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to The Pit: GREYHOUND (2020) + U-BOATS: THE WOLFPACK and B-17: THE FLYING FORTRESS (1987)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

‘I see you, evil Nazi schwein, and I will defeat you…’<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Every once in a while I manage to connect something brand spanking new with a lesser-known production, and as luck would have it, a forgotten pair of half-hour documentaries sold to syndicated TV stations and specialty channels in 1987 was released by BSX Entertainment on DVD earlier this year.<\/p>\n

The double-bill of U-Boats: The Wolfpack<\/a><\/strong> and B-17: The Flying Fortress<\/strong><\/a> (1987) feature scores by a young Christopher Young (Hellraiser<\/strong>) and are still solid, concise accounts of the German Nazi U-boats which wreaked havoc on allied supply ships in the Atlantic during WWII, and in the second doc, the mighty B-17 bomber, perhaps one of the most iconic war planes of the era.<\/p>\n

I pulled out the DVD because the U-boat doc provides background on Greyhound<\/a><\/strong> (2020), the more intricately dramatized attempts of a U.S. navy Captain tasked with guiding allied supply ships to Britain. It’s a solid drama starring Tom Hanks, who also wrote the screenplay based on C.S. Forester\u2019s novel The Good Shepherd<\/strong>. Greyhound<\/strong> is a taut, concise, terrific film running less than 90 mins. (!) and is only available via Apple TV+.<\/p>\n

In interviews surrounding the film’s imminent (digital) release, Hanks was polite in expressing his delight the Sony-produced film found a home with Apple TV after COVID quashed its intended theatrical run, and although he, like many film fans, would\u2019ve preferred people had had a chance to see Greyhound\u00a0<\/strong>on the big screen, it still works as an intimate drama on the small screen, even though it should (and deserves) a proper physical release with contextual extras.<\/p>\n

Coming next:<\/em> Blood & Flesh: The Reel Life & Ghastly Death of Al Adamson<\/strong> (2019) + The Female Bunch<\/strong> (1971) from Severin; a book review of Cult Epics\u2019 gorgeous Women of the Sun: Bunny Yeager in Mexico<\/strong> (2020) + The Claire Sinclaire Show<\/strong> (2014); and a pairing of two Sir Lew (low) Grade cinematic duds from 1980,\u00a0Saturn 3<\/strong> + Raise the Titanic! <\/strong>and an answer to the most obvious question regarding these ITC super-productions:\u00a0Are they really that bad, or are there any merits at all to their respective takes on modern sci-fi and the infamous marine tragedy?<\/em><\/p>\n

Thanks for reading,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two sides of a vicious WWII sea battle: GREYHOUND (2020) from Apple TV+ \/ Sony + U-BOATS: THE WOLFPACK and B-17: THE FLYING FORTRESS (1987) on DVD from BSX Entertainment<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20270,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[6483,304,2562,2563,6486,2169,6482,4220],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Greyhound_featured.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-5gV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20269"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20269"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20286,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20269\/revisions\/20286"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}