The Kid Who Couldn't Miss

The Kid Who Couldn't Miss
Directed byPaul Cowan
Written byJohn Gray
Eric Peterson
Produced byAdam Symansky
StarringWilliam Hutt
Eric Peterson
CinematographyPaul Cowan
Edited byPaul Cowan
Sidonie Kerr
Music byBen Low
Production
company
Release date
  • 3 March 1983 (1983-03-03) (Canada)
CountryCanada
LanguagesEnglish
French
Budget$334,560

The Kid Who Couldn't Miss is a 1983 docudrama film directed by Paul Cowan. Produced by the National Film Board of Canada, it combines fact and fiction to question fighter pilot Billy Bishop's accomplishments during World War I, featuring excerpts from John MacLachlan Gray's play Billy Bishop Goes to War.[1] The film specifically questions accounts of Bishop's solo mission to attack a German aerodrome on June 2, 1917, for which he was awarded a Victoria Cross, and suggests the event was imaginary and that Bishop exaggerated his own accomplishments.

In one particularly contentious scene, his mechanic claims that the damage to his fighter was confined to a small circle in a non-critical area, implying that Bishop had landed his aircraft off-field, shot the holes in it, and then flown home with claims of combat damage. In reality, his mechanic was his biggest supporter in this issue and the scene was entirely fictitious. The mechanic insisted that Bishop had not fabricated the damage.[citation needed]

  1. ^ "The Kid Who Couldn't Miss". NFB Collections page. Retrieved 2009-05-12.