Two Oscars out of four nominations; a film still being used by the military in leadership training programs; a film of the mind and heart. I guess most who read this won't understand how I feel, but this is a film about things I actually remember. My Godfather was a waist-gunner in the 8th Air Force and this film helped explain why and how he had changed before his final discharge.
Twelve O'Clock High is nominally a story that focuses on how twelve men deal with the stresses and realities of war. Inevitably, of course, it deals with many more than just twelve men. I pray to a kind and just God that I may write this well enough to inspire you to see it for yourself.
Shot in black-and-white, the film opens with Dean Jagger wandering London streets as a post-war tourist. Passing a shop he notices something in the window. It's a Toby mug and you know immediately it has significance for him. He enters the shop and emerges with a wrapped package -- obviously the Toby mug.
The setting moves to Jagger returning to an abandoned and overgrown English airfield with his package. He paces the tarmac, noting the intrusion of weeds where there had been carefully maintained pavement. He visits the Officer's Club, noting the abandoned wall decorations and scheduling boards. There is a mug rack as well, and we know the significance of the Toby mug. He doesn't speak, and the sound is the distant singing of the "Whiffenpoof Song" and the WWII favorite "Bless 'em all."
Gradually he surrenders to the flood of memories stirred by his surroundings and a new sound is heard. It's the powerful cackling of a big-bore radial aircraft engine starting up, and the weeds start to blow in a prop-wash. It's the most nearly perfect opening to a war movie I've ever seen, and is one I'll never forget.
The setting is authentic, shot at RAF Barford St. John Air Base, Oxfordshire, England, UK. The camera expands to show B-17 bombers running up and taking off. and there is an indefinable tension in the very air. From here, the movie also takes off, telling the story of its central characters and giving a uniquely realistic picture of what war is all about.
The film was directed by Henry King, who is probably best know for his directing of Franz Werfel's Song of Bernadette. He had the good fortune to be working with a story and script written by Sy Bartlett and Bierne Lay Jr. Bierne Lay flew as a member of the 100th Bomb Group, co-pilot of the B-17 Picadilly Lilly, and was intimately familiar with what he wrote about.
The cast is ensemble quality, with each character creating a new and indelible memory to carry with you long after the film is over. The lead character is General Frank Savage, a man of iron will and determination who will also demonstrate the reality that iron, unless tempered, can be brittle. Savage is played by Gregory Peck with a natural assurance that seems almost a part of Peck himself.
Peck gives insight into Savage's personality in his address to the fighter pilots: "Well, I can tell you right now what the problem is. I saw it in your faces last night. I can see it there now. You've been looking at a lot of air lately and you feel you need a rest. In short, you're feeling sorry for yourselves. Now I don't have a lot of patience with this 'What are we fighting for?' stuff. We're in a war, a shooting war. We've got to fight. And some of us have got to die."
This is carried even further when he addresses his bomb group upon being assigned as its commanding officer. He tells them; "Stop worrying about getting killed. Don't make any plans for the future. You're already dead."
Peck is surrounded and supported by such characters as the man he replaces, Colonel Keith Davenport who is played by Gary Merrill. Davenport, we learn, is being replaced for "overidentifying with his men." Peck's exquisitely harsh berating of the gate guard for waving his car through without checking identification assures us he will never be guilty of such "overidentification." Or, will he"
Peck's new adjutant is one of the WWII "retreads" in the person of Dean Jagger as Major Harvey Stovall. Stovall is an overage reservist who was called in and had to leave a civilian law practice. Stovall has also formed his own personal attachments with the previous staff, and now must learn how to adapt to the seemingly harder and colder Gen. Savage.
Another of Savage's problems is Lieutenant Colonel Ben Gately, played by Hugh Marlowe. Gately's problem is a reluctance to put either himself, his crew, or his squadron in unnecessary danger over Europe. In short, he has shown a tendency to find excuses to abort missions. This is one of the main reason's for Savage's "...you're already dead." speech. Savage's solution is to make Gately rename his B-17 "The Leper Colony," and to assign all the malingerers, dope-offs, gold bricks, and just general screw-ups to the plane as its crew -- with Gately as pilot, of course.
Savage's office clerk is Sgt McIllhenny, played by Robert Arthur. There is an interesting and amusing interplay between Savage and McIllhenny over his fluctuating rank. He is given to performing in an outstanding manner and being promoted, then getting caught in a scam and being demoted again. It is McIllhenny's main desire to fly a combat mission himself, even though he isn't a rated crewmember. He finally stows away on a plane (won't tell you whose) and actually manages to shoot down three German fighters on the mission. I also won't tell you Savage's reaction to this feat.
There are moments that are timeless, such as the crash landing of a B-17 on the runway. It was a genuine crash landing by stunt pilot Paul Mantz and is a thriller. There is the wounded crewmember who loses his leg. The rest of the crew can see that he will bleed to death long before they can return to their home field, so they apply a tourniquet, put him in a parachute and drop him over France. There is also the scene when the plane has landed, and it is left to Major Stovall to take a blanket, board the plane, and emerge carrying the bundled up leg.
I don't want to tell you too much about this film because nothing should spoil it. Once seen, you can recall and discuss various event of the movie without diminishing its impact, but it should be first seen completely cold.
Did I say cold? It's virtually impossible to be "cold" when you -- along with the flight crews -- become accustomed to being an unwilling part of a daily "Maximum Effort" bombing attack. You absorb the unspoken knowledge that until fighter escorts became effective only 15% of the flight crews could hope to live to the completion of their required number of missions. You live with the knowledge that each time you take off, regardless of how many planes go with you, there is a fifty percent probability you won't come back alive. Did I say cold?
Get this film (available on VHS and I'm amazed they haven't put it on DVD yet) and see what my Godfather lived through and what we heard of in his V-Mail letters. See the actual combat films that I watched in the neighborhood movie house and know that you are seeing men die -- for you! The men who lived this movie are fast disappearing from our midst, and largely unmourned. They should be mourned when they pass. I truly believe that, after you've seen this movie, they will be mourned more than they are right now.
The only flaw in the entire movie was that they showed the use of filter tipped cigarettes when they weren't in existence during WWII. Oh, well, perfection is always uncomfortable anyhow. Watch this film, pity General Savage, and feel the sadness of Harvey Stovall as he makes his nostalgic pilgrimage. This is another "must" for all true fans of cinema, and for all who appreciate the heroism of those men who fought our wars for us.
An Allied flight commander and his successor run daylight bombing raids out of England. Directed by Henry King. Best supporting Oscar for Jagger.More at HotMovieSale.com
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