And at the wire...first a couple of detail shots of the Attend'
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I am moderately proud of the engines.
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Plus L'Air (Cinema Connerie, 1935) should have been the
The Mysterians* of it's day. Hughes had approached Clark Yo jr. about 'loaning' some of the prototypes under construction at YA for a 'follow-on' to
Hells' Angels in early 1932. Hearing about it, De Basher immediately offered his services as a pilot and consultant,gratis. Using his considerable persuasive skills,( and no small amount of alcohol) Hughes was able to convince the French that the psychological effect on the Germans would be "worth a hundred squadrons".
The details of the filming, De Basher's scandalous affair with Josephine Baker, and the unfocused Matthews Beam that would plunge Paris into darkness for twenty four hours have all been told in detail in André Bazin's exhaustive study
Plus ca Merdre! Hughes, De Basher et le film qui a aveuglé Paris(City Lights Press, 1967) Suffice to say, the general chaos of the production eventually resulted in the film being confiscated by French authorities, leaving nothing but a few grainy test clips. Ultimately, it would all be revealed as a double Psychological operation, designed to make the Germans believe these 'Super weapons of Super Science' were in service in numbers, when the reality was (1) the military budget for the next decade had already been spent on the Maginot forts and Eclairs, and (2) They really didn't work. The few frames that survive, and De basher's own account indicate that the Attend' could not manage an altitude much over two hundred meters, and had a range only slightly greater, while the 'La Toupie' "just sort of bounced all over the sky." as De Basher put it, "As long as the engine was running, you could keep it more or less in one direction, for a few minutes, and then the transmission would seize for an instant on one of the rotors, and you'd spiral straight up for a few seconds, then level out heading in the opposite direction you'd been going. Landing, I realized, was going to be...interesting." As indeed it proved to be, but a substantial bribe to France's largest Ceramics firm allowed the prototype fighter to end its days as the loudest and largest pottery wheels in Western Europe. The 'Toupie' started life as another Heller classic, The Morane Saulnier MS 225. The inspiration came from a thirties MODERN MECHANICS cover "Amazing Spinning Top plane" with looked like a
cross between a bizarre carnival ride and Dick Tracy's Magnetic Space coupe. One thing is certain - old Heller decals are...difficult.
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