When I think of Sam Mendes‘ 1917 I mutter “hugely impressive tech,” even though it works emotionally and story-wise on top of this. And then I recall this scene.

Again, dazzling tech. But then comes the inexplicable behavior of the German pilot after being pulled from his burning aircraft. It’s even crazier than the end of Alfred Hitchcoock‘s Lifeboat, when a teenaged German U-boat sailor is hauled out of the sea by British-American rescuers (“danke schoen”) only to pull a Luger on them a few seconds later.

The difference is that the German pilot was merely loyal to Germany and the Kaiser while the U-boat kid was a “Nazi buzzard.” Here’s the mp3.

Everyone’s favorite Hitchcock cameo (:59 mark):

Passed along by Bill McCuddy, originally from a book by Jeffrey Lyons: “A few days into shooting the Lifeboat dp or assistant director comes to Hitchcock and says ‘Tallulah isn’t wearing any underwear.’ Hitchcock asks and she admits it, and Hitch says, ‘I don’t know whether to call hair or make-up.’”