Sole Survivor

Classic film review: "Sole Survivor".
     Some films stay in your mind for a lifetime. One such film is "Sole Survivor". It aired on January  9th, 1970 as a "CBS Friday Night Movie". The film is loosely based on the fate of B-24 Liberator bomber known as "Lady Be Good" and it's crew.

     After a raid on Naples on April 4, 1943, the crew goes in the wrong direction and ends up flying hundreds of miles in the wrong direction.  Somewhere over the desert, the crew bail out. The plane wreck was found in 1958 by a survey aircraft. After a search, all but one of the crew remains were found.
     The film is written as an investigation drama and begins at the time of finding of the aircraft. Richard Basehat plays Big Gen. Russell Hammer, the sole survivor of the B-25 Mitchell bomber known as "Home Run", which was presumed to have been lost at sea. The General is then flown to the crash site as part of an official investigation. Going along with him are Lt. Co. Josef Gronke (William Shatner) and Maj. Michael Devlin (Vince Edwards).
     Hammer gives his account of the flight and why he bailed out.  Listening in are the spirits of the crew, fully visible to the audience but not to the investigative team.
     Gronke wants to wrap up the investigation, but but Maj. Devlin has doubts. During a heated discussion in their tent, Gronke is shirtless, in typical Shatner fashion.
     The spirits of the crew desperately want to be found, so that their bodies can be returned home. They scheme to find artifacts of their belongings as clues to their survival and not to be assumed as to having been lost at sea.
     Eventually, Gen. Hammer breaks down admits to his cowardice in the air. He gets in a jeep and backtracks down the flight path of the "Home Run". Eventually they find most of the remains. With one man missing, Maj. Devlin returns to the crash site to retrieve one missing man, who is still in the aircraft.
     Although it is a made for TV movie, it retains an air of tension throughout. The audience can see the pressure the General is under as he tries to deflect facts and while keeping his story straight.
     It's been 54 years since I've seen this film, but fir some reason, I  never forgot it. It's available for free (with commercials) on YouTube. 

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