Belle Epic

While Americans sweat it out in the Saudi Arabian desert, the youthful cast of Memphis Belle arrives just in time to remind us that soldiers are often mere boys called on to take someone else's heat. Producers David Puttnam, making his first film since his controversial stand as chairman of Columbia Pictures, and Catherine Wyler, inspired by the stirring W.W. II documentary on the famed B17 bomber directed by her late father, William Wyler, may have been bent on making what actor Eric Stoltz calls "a politically correct Top Gun." But to the frisky crew of up-andcoming actors assembled by Scandal director Michael Caton-Jones, shooting the movie in England was a hell-bent exercise in male bonding. "We became the overseas airmen,'' laughs Stoltz. "Overpaid, oversexed, and over there." Says Billy Zane of the vintage B-17s drafted into service for the movie, "They drove like your pop's old Buick." Even the stalwart Matthew Modine, who as the most experienced member of the ensemble took naturally to his role as Dennis Dearborn, the Memphis Belle's unflappable captain, raved after sitting in the pilot's seat, ' 'It's much more fun than a motorcycle—very sexy, a big throbbing thing with four engines."

GREGG KILDAY