Veterans Day Program: Memphis Belle: The Restoration - Opening Remarks and Discussion
Channel: US National Archives
Date: 13/11/2020

On May 17, 1943, the crew of the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress Memphis Belle successfully completed their 25th and final mission.  Famed Hollywood director William Wyler, then a major in the United States Army Air Forces, and his crew shot over 15 hours of footage that would become the documentary, Memphis Belle: The Story of a Flying Fortress.  In 2018, in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the final flight, the National Archives partnered with Vulcan Productions and Creative Differences to digitally preserve the film and outtakes.
  
 NARA Supervisory Motion Picture Preservation Specialist Criss Austin moderates a discussion with Catherine Wyler, film producer and daughter of William Wyler, and filmmaker Erik Nelson, who collaborated on the restoration and used the outtake footage in his 2018 documentary The Cold Blue.

The restored version of The Memphis Belle has been removed for copyright reasons.  To see an unrestored version of the film, please go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNWb18kpCCI