The Yellow Squadron (1954) User Reviews

A waste of time

[Alphonse_van_Worden · 1/10 · 7 April 2008]

A flic of mind-boggling worthlessness. Only aficionados passionately in love with airplanes are likely to find anything of interest in it. There's no plot, the dialog is badly written and the actors don't seem to be very pleased with wasting their talent. Some of them have actually made good performances in other movies. It's a disgrace to Swedish cinema and it almost defies the imagination that this movie that should never have been made in the first place is available on DVD.

What we're supposed to pay to watch and listen to is, besides a great many airplanes making a lot of noise and the dramatic line "You're too close, yellow (gula) 5!", the "story" of the bad guy who threatens to tell the officers that the good guy's dad is in jail so he can't become an officer and the good guy has to lend the bad guy 10 Swedish crowns (about a dollar and a half), but it turns out that the major knew all the time so the good guy gets his dollar back from the bad guy and he can become an officer!

Swedish Air Force in the 50:ies

[bda157 · 23 December 2003]

As a background: In the 50:es the Swedish Air Force was the third biggest in the world. The "J29 SAAB Tunnan" was as good as the best US (Sabre) and Soviet (Mig15) air fighters. Tunnan held for a time the world speed record at the distance of 500 km. Tunnan was in UN Service in Kongo, and made a substantial contribution to the UN victory.

Worth to see for the flying.

[fenris-656-914998 · 7/10 · 14 February 2010]

The plot is not the best, but one has to consider that general Nordenskjöld, commander of the Swedish Air Force at the time, demanded several changes in the script if the Air Force was to cooperate. The flying sequences are very well executed for a Swedish film of that time. There is some flaws in editing. For example, the aircraft for the most time are marked with an "8" (for F8, the fighter-wing at Barkarby where most of the film was made) but, without explanation, they sometimes have other markings. Also, a segment shows a squadron of J29 fighters on a training mission. When they arrive at their target, they have transformed into A29's, the ground attack version of J29, and fire air to ground- rockets they didn't carry in previous shots. All in all, I enjoyed the movie because of the flying, and because I did my military training in the Swedish Air Force.

Excellent aviation movie!

[t-i · 10/10 · 18 December 2003]

This movie gives a good view of the everyday life of a Swedish Air Force aviator in the early 1950's. It shows several interesting aspects, ranging from flying practice to live fire practice, and even emergency situations (seeing that magnificent Catalina gives me goose-pimples). A large part of the movie also focuses on the personal life of the aviators. This also has interesting elements, such as the surprising level of equality between the sexes, keeping in mind that this is a 1950's movie.

To sum it up, it's a must-see for all of you with a genuine interest in aviation and Swedish military history! The quality of the J 29 Tunnan footage is excellent. And if that isn't enough, you also get to see some truly death-defying stunts being pulled off by a SAAB Safir.

Fascinating effects being produced in 1954

[monstein · 22 June 2002]

You wouldn't expect a film from 1954 to contain these many aircrafts and shots up in the air. Especially not if it's a swedish film from 1954. Some effects like explosions are not as thrustworthy as others, and when an aircraft (SAAB Tunnan) crashes, after having to little fuel to make it to the strip, they use some kind of wooden model to replace the aircraft in the scenes. The real aircraft has a smooth shape while the model is edgy and uneven. This made me laugh a bit until i made myself realize it was made almost a half decade ago.

Anyway, the plot is not one of the best, but if you're an aircraft fanatic this is a funny picture to watch.