The Big Lift

The Big Lift is a 1950 drama film shot in blackandwhite on location in the city of Berlin, Germany, that tells the story of Operation Vittles, the 19481949 Berlin Airlift, through the experiences of two U.S. Air Force sergeants played by Montgomery Clift and Paul Douglas.

Offduty American airmen of the 19th Troop Carrier Squadron in Hawaii are ordered to report to their squadron in July 1948. What is briefed as a temporary training assignment in the United States becomes a flight halfway around the world to Germany for the C54 Skymasters of the 19th, where the Soviets have blockaded Berlin in an attempt to force out the Allies by starving the city. Tech Sgt. Danny MacCullough Montgomery Clift, flight engineer of a C54 nicknamed The White Hibiscus, is immediately ordered to fly with his crew from Frankfurt into Tempelhof Airport to deliver a load of coal. His friend Master Sgt. Hank Kowalski Paul Douglas, a groundcontrolled approach GCA operator, hitches a ride with them to his new station. Hank, a POW during World War II, resents the German people and goes out of his way to be rude and overbearing to them. Danny on the other hand is frustrated at being restricted to the airport because of the necessity of quickly offloading and returning to Frankfurt.Months later the crew of Big Easya call sign, airlift shorthand for an eastbound C54 renames their airplane Der Schwarze The Black Hibiscus because of the grimy soot that has accumulated in it from hauling coal. They become temporary celebrities on a mission when they are the 100,000th flight of Operation Vittles into Berlin. Danny is immediately enamored of Frederica Burkhardt Cornell Borchers, an attractive German war widow chosen to thank him on behalf of the women of Berlin. When a news correspondent covering the ceremony recruits Danny for a public relations stunt, Danny jumps at the opportunity as a means of getting a pass in Berlin and seeing Frederica again. During a tour of the city, Dannys uniform is accidentally covered with poster paste, forcing him to wear civilian working clothes until it is cleaned. They meet Hank and his Schatzi, the friendly and intelligent Gerda, at a night club, where Hank is rude to Frederica and treats Gerda as an inferior. Hank chances to see t

Source: Wikipedia