War Eagles

The journey into adulthood for a young Tsimshian boy.

This latest addition to Philip J Riley's Alternate History of Classic Filmonsters series is a collaborative effort with fellow film historian David Conover that delves into one of the most famous unproduced motion pictures of all time, Merian C. Cooper's legendary WAR EAGLES! Planned as a full Technicolor production at MGM in the late 1930s, WAR EAGLES would have eclipsed Cooper and long-time SFX partner Willis O'Brien's KING KONG as the greatest fantasy epic of the period had it not fallen victim to pre-war studio politics and the rise of Hitler's Third Reich on the eve of World War II. Long considered a lost film effort, Conover's research has actually uncovered a richly detailed pre-production history, complete with never-before -published artwork, storyboards, test footage frames and more, direct from studio archives and the estates of technicians and artists who actually worked on the film. Also included is the full, never-published final draft of WAR EAGLES by Cyril Hume (screenwriter of MGM's Tarzan series and the sci-fi masterpiece FORBIDDEN PLANET) along with Merian C. Cooper's original treatment and production designer Howard Campbell's notes and budgets for the ill-fated production. For decades, stop-motion fans and film researchers considered an early, coverless draft attributed to Willis O'Brien-- but actually written by Harold Lamb and James Ashmore Creelman-- to be the only existing script for WAR EAGLES, but Conover's discovery of the original typescripts at the USC film library in 2003 turned up 7 more drafts and multiple revisions that eventually led to the final Hume draft. Pre-production artist Duncan Gleason began detailed storyboarding and illustration based on this draft and it is very likely that it would have become the actual shooting script. Detailed models and sets were built and Technicolor test footage featuring stop-motion animation by Willis O'Brien and his crew (including Kong/Mighty Joe Young creators Marcel Delgado and George Lofgren) was shot, and the exciting tale of a lost race of Viking warriors astride giant prehistoric eagles doing battle with Nazis over the skies of modern day Manhattan almost reached the screen until the reality of impending war halted production in 1940... David Conover is a film writer and historian who began his quest to uncover the history of WAR EAGLES as a 13-year-old reader of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. He was a columnist and reviewer for the Louisville Eccentric Observer for 9 years and his work was syndicated widely during that period as well. He is also the Vice President and Programming Director for WonderFest, an international modeling, toy, film and FX expo that takes place annually in Louisville, Ky, where he lives with his wife, daughter, and a tiny piece of the stegosaurus model from the original KING KONG. If you ask him, he'll show it to you, along with the final page of Cyril Hume's WAR EAGLES script. He's not crazy, just enthusiastic..

Just prior to WWII, a publicly-humiliated Air Force test pilot, court-martialed for a stunt that endangered President Roosevelt, takes the only job he can get: flying an experimental plane from the South to North poles. When his plane is attacked and crashes in the Artic, he finds himself in an undiscovered land with an ancient people.

Written by Colonel James Saxon Childers, who served in the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II, this book, which was first published in 1943, provides an informal account of the American Eagle Squadron attached to Great Britain’s Royal Air Force. Contains over 100 illustrations, including maps.

In the North, a lanky lawyer named Abraham Lincoln was recovering from a brutal political setback. In the South, eloquent U.S. Senator Jefferson Davis was risking all in a race for governor of his native Mississippi. And far to the Southwest, the future of the frontier was being decided as the U.S. Army, under Colonel Bull Moose Sumner, faced the growing alliance of Native Americans led by the great Mangas Coloradas and determined to defend their ancestral lands. For First Lieutenant Nathanial Barrington it was his first test as a professional soldier following orders he distrusted in an undeclared war without conscience or quarter – and his test as a man when he met the Apache woman warrior Jocita in a night lit by passion that would yield to a day of dark decisions… War Eagles.

This latest addition to Philip J Riley's Alternate History of Classic Filmonsters series is a collaborative effort with fellow film historian David Conover that delves into one of the most famous unproduced motion pictures of all time, Merian C. Cooper's legendary WAR EAGLES! Planned as a full Technicolor production at MGM in the late 1930s, WAR EAGLES would have eclipsed Cooper and long-time SFX partner Willis O'Brien's KING KONG as the greatest fantasy epic of the period had it not fallen victim to pre-war studio politics and the rise of Hitler's Third Reich on the eve of World War II. Long considered a lost film effort, Conover's research has actually uncovered a richly detailed pre-production history, complete with never-before -published artwork, storyboards, test footage frames and more, direct from studio archives and the estates of technicians and artists who actually worked on the film. Also included is the full, never-published final draft of WAR EAGLES by Cyril Hume (screenwriter of MGM's Tarzan series and the sci-fi masterpiece FORBIDDEN PLANET) along with Merian C. Cooper's original treatment and production designer Howard Campbell's notes and budgets for the ill-fated production. For decades, stop-motion fans and film researchers considered an early, coverless draft attributed to Willis O'Brien-- but actually written by Harold Lamb and James Ashmore Creelman-- to be the only existing script for WAR EAGLES, but Conover's discovery of the original typescripts at the USC film library in 2003 turned up 7 more drafts and multiple revisions that eventually led to the final Hume draft. Pre-production artist Duncan Gleason began detailed storyboarding and illustration based on this draft and it is very likely that it would have become the actual shooting script. Detailed models and sets were built and Technicolor test footage featuring stop-motion animation by Willis O'Brien and his crew (including Kong/Mighty Joe Young creators Marcel Delgado and George Lofgren) was shot, and the exciting tale of a lost race of Viking warriors astride giant prehistoric eagles doing battle with Nazis over the skies of modern day Manhattan almost reached the screen until the reality of impending war halted production in 1940... David Conover is a film writer and historian who began his quest to uncover the history of WAR EAGLES as a 13-year-old reader of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. He was a columnist and reviewer for the Louisville Eccentric Observer for 9 years and his work was syndicated widely during that period as well. He is also the Vice President and Programming Director for WonderFest, an international modeling, toy, film and FX expo that takes place annually in Louisville, Ky, where he lives with his wife, daughter, and a tiny piece of the stegosaurus model from the original KING KONG. If you ask him, he'll show it to you, along with the final page of Cyril Hume's WAR EAGLES script. He's not crazy, just enthusiastic..

When Canada went to war with Japan following the bombing of Pearl Harbour, Canadians of Japanese descent were declared "Enemy Aliens." Without recourse of any kind, they were forced to leave their homes along with the British Columbia coast, their possessions were sold, and their rights as citizens denied. Caged Eagles follows fourteen-year-old Tadashi Fukushima and his family as they embark on a tortuous physical and emotional journey. Along with neighbours from their remote village on the northern BC coast, they travel by fishing boat to Vancouver, where they are placed in detention in Hastings Park, the Pacific National Exhibition ground, and forced to live in cattle stalls. For Tadashi detention becomes both an adventure and a dilemma as he struggles to understand the undercurrents of racism and injustice that have overtaken his life and those of his community.

Amidst the turmoil of the 1851 Apache Wars, Nathanial Barrington, a commissioned officer, will battle the deadly Apaches and the even more dangerous enemies of temptation and passion.