Movies that Mention CAP?

[♠SARKID♠]

I was tooling around on the web and found a show called "Cavalcade of America" on TV.com.  Its an old radio (and aparrently, later TV) show from the fifties, and one episode was called "Disaster Patrol".

From TV.com

The work, organization, and purpose of the Civil Air Patrol is described in a dramatization about a CAP pilot in California who risks his life to fly doctors and emergency supplies into a canyon community seriously damaged by an earthquake.

Anyone know anything about this?  I'm trying to find a recording of the episode.

[NIN]

In case you've never seen it, CadetStuff serialized a book that I found on eBay some years ago called "Squadron Command" EDIT: "Squadron Alert" (I'm a dork and had a brain cramp there..):

http://www.cadetstuff.org/archives/cat_features.html


(we're working on rebuilding our CMS into something different.. this particular presentation is... Poor. But all 19 chapters are there)

[Striker941]

Does anyone have or seen the whole "special" of MAYDAY! MAYDAY!?  i have only been able to find the 9 minute clip on youtube of just after the crash.... i tried asking National about it but they have no clue, or know nothing of it.

[NJMEDIC]

Dale Brown in his latest book mentions CAP, He is a retired Capt. USAF

[bricktonfire]

this is not a movie but in Dale BRown's Book Strike Force it talks about the Civil Air Patrol

[bricktonfire]

sry for the double post i did not see it

[0]

Dale Brown in his latest book mentions CAP, He is a retired Capt. USAF

this is not a movie but in Dale BRown's Book Strike Force it talks about the Civil Air Patrol

While Mr. Brown does mention us in this book.  It's not that new, it's been out for over a year.  The confusion of it being "new" is that it was just released in paperback.

[dogboy]

"Red Dawn" was originally supposed to be about a CAP squadron, but NHQ refused to give permission for the name and logo to be used.  So they made it about the football team instead.

As a movie screenwriter, I don't believe this is very likely. Since few members of the public know what the Civil Air Patrol is, a whole pointless backstory would have been necessary to explain it. Everyone knows what a football team is.

Also,

[Hawk200]

Not a movie reference, but I remember an episode of "Pretender" mentioning CAP. Don't remember much about it, other than he was in Arizona, someone got lost, he goes to the Sherrif's office. Sherrif yells at his deputy to alert the K9 team, someone else, and "the Civil Air Patrol".

CAP was most definitely not a part of the story, only a mention.

[Major Carrales]

"Cowboy in the Clouds," a 1940s era movie about a CAP Officer.  Here is what the net says about it...

This western features a flying cowboy. He is a rancher who became a pilot. As a pilot he staunchly defends the newly formed Civil Air Patrol from the cattle barons who fail to see the value of airplanes on the range. The flying rancher proves that they are indeed valuable after he flies into a forest fire and saves a cattle rancher's daughter. He also uses his plane to catch a murderer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

[dogboy]

BTW, "Red Dawn" is available online for free at http://www.watchclassicmovies.com/Site/Red_Dawn.html

I dunno how this can be or whether it's legal but there it is. It's an flv so you can download it.

"Red Dawn" was originally supposed to be about a CAP squadron, but NHQ refused to give permission for the name and logo to be used.  So they made it about the football team instead.

As a movie screenwriter, I don't believe this is very likely. Since few members of the public know what the Civil Air Patrol is, a whole pointless backstory would have been necessary to explain it. Everyone knows what a football team is.

Also,

[High Speed Low Drag]

I just happened to be watching an "old" movie when I saw CAP wings.

"If looks could kill," about 20 minutes into it, the main characher (teenager Michael Corbin) is asleep on the flight to France when a secret agent pins a set of wings on to "Corbin."  The wings are gold plated and look like CAP Observer Wings.

[Major Rob]

This is from memory, especially as it was quick and fleeting and I'd have to go back and re-watch to confirm it. But, a fellow member and myself went to see the movie Live Free or Die Hard and we both swore that we heard radio chatter during the scene where the fighters are chasing Bruce Willis' truck across a bridge that mentioned "something, something, Civil Air Patrol."

It may not be a featured role, but - unless we are gravely mistaken - it was there. Maybe someone else can confirm this for us?

[JohnKachenmeister]

"Red Dawn" was originally supposed to be about a CAP squadron, but NHQ refused to give permission for the name and logo to be used.  So they made it about the football team instead.

As a movie screenwriter, I don't believe this is very likely. Since few members of the public know what the Civil Air Patrol is, a whole pointless backstory would have been necessary to explain it. Everyone knows what a football team is.

Also,

Iran into an Army Lt Col from DoD Public Affairs at a conference once.  We had dinner together, and he told stories about DoD support requests from Hollywood studios.

He mentioned the CAP/Red Dawn connection, as well as a CAP connection to "Iron Eagle" that was similarly supposed to involve a CAP on-base squadron.  CAP refused to allow use of the name and logo for that one, so the dependent children who stole the F-16's were formed into some undefined club.

DoD support was also withheld for "Heartbreak Ridge" because the producers refused to redact the scene where Gunny Highway shoots the wounded Cubans.

Back in the 80's there was a prime-time soap opera about Army life on some post, with the personal drama centering around the life and loves of people in an Airborne unit.  I forget the name of the show.  Initially, it had DoD support, but it was withdrawn when they included a scene abouit a company commander's wife engaging in group sex with several members of her husband's company.  DoD offered to continue support if they simply had her having an affair with ONE member of the company, but not such a large percentage of her husband's command.  The show jumped the shark about that time, anyway.

[ol'fido]

Google the actor Cliff Potts and you might get the name of the show. Can't remember it either but I do remember him playing the company first shirt who was also having an affair with a very blonde and bosomy Army doctor.

[ßτε]

For Love and Honor

[a2capt]

I can so envision Red Dawn being centered around a hard kewl gung ho squadron. ... while it would have been not as bad as Iron Eagle, probably still not the image that they wanted to convey.

[JohnKachenmeister]

Once in a great while Hollywood does something that shows that some of the people out on the Left Coast may have an IQ above room temperature.  Like in Starship Troopers, the troop-carrying spaceship was named the "Rodger Young."  Rodger Young was a Medal of Honor recipient in the 37th Infantry Division in World War II. 

[FlyTiger77]

Once in a great while Hollywood does something that shows that some of the people out on the Left Coast may have an IQ above room temperature.  Like in Starship Troopers, the troop-carrying spaceship was named the "Rodger Young."  Rodger Young was a Medal of Honor recipient in the 37th Infantry Division in World War II.

Or they just took it verbatim from the text of Mr. Heinlein's 1959 masterpiece (of which the movie made a mockery, but, alas, that is a topic for another thread).

[dogboy]

"Red Dawn" was originally supposed to be about a CAP squadron, but NHQ refused to give permission for the name and logo to be used.  So they made it about the football team instead.

"Iron Eagle" was also supposed to be about a CAP squadron on an AF base, but NHQ again refused to let the name and logos be used, so the producers made it a private dependent flying club made up of teenagers on base.

I've heard these stories a hundred times and never seen a shred of documentation for them. They are highly unlikely. They always seem to come from people who know nothing about the law and less about filmmaking.

First, filmmakers don't have to obtain the permission  of CAP NHQ to use the name and logo. It's called "fair use". Do you think they got Army permission to make "Platoon?

If the script were openly defamatory about CAP, such as claiming that adult CAP leaders of Cadets are pedophiles, then there might be some legal ground for objecting. But just identifying protagonists as CAP Cadets? That would be perfectly ok and it wouldn't matter at all if NHQ objected.

It is true that filmmakers often seek out help from armed forces and offer script approval but that's because they need logistical support not because of any requirement for permission.

Second, it's even more unlikely that CAP was ever in the story because the general public knows nothing about CAP. Therefore there would have to be a whole pointless back-story explaining what CAP is. That CAP is not really part of the military, that children participate as Cadets etc. None of this would advance the script. No script with this useless material would ever be approved.

Red Dawn used a football team because everyone knows what a high school football team is. Eagle Scouts are mentioned as a supposedly "elite paramilitary organization" because most people have at least a vague idea what an Eagle Scout is. Nobody knows what the CAP is and therefore it wouldn't appear in a film.