Reborn B-17 in Twelve O' Clock High

[Mark Sublette]

I was looking at a copy of "12 O'Clock High" on DVD recently, and I was just doing some freeze-framing of various scenes, and I just noticed for the first time that the B-17 that Paul Mantz bellied in at the beginning of the movie is coded GK-R and has nose art of a running Keystone Cop on the starboard nose. In "Chapter 8 - Loyalty", just after the training mission with "Leper Colony", the crewmen who walk away from the flightline with the Southerner griping "Close it up - close it up..." are walking past the port side of the SAME B-17 that Mantz bellied in! It is still coded GK-R, and has the Keystone Cop nose art on the port nose, although I haven't been able to decipher the name of the plane.

SO - it appears the scenes were shot out of order...