NR | 1h 37m | Drama | 1944
Director Henry Hathaway’s introductory text to this film reads, “For purposes of military security, the names of men and some of the ships in this motion picture are fictitious. But the important incidents and the heroism are history.”
Hathaway is asking audiences to move beyond the factual minutiae of the World War II theater of the Pacific Ocean, as he respectfully dramatizes the real-life Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway. To him, the bigger picture is about paying homage to the patriotism and pluck of a then-beleaguered U.S. Navy.
Three months on from the attack on Pearl Harbor, the American public feels taunted by tabloid headlines. They wonder why their navy hasn’t retaliated, even as the Japanese keep up their offensive.
Secretly, U.S. Navy top brass suspect a Japanese attempt to capture Pearl Harbor will be preceded by a storming of Midway Island. American officers take a defensive pose. Why? Their strategy is to lull the Japanese into believing that American morale is shattered.
Military Strategy
Secrecy is paramount—hence, a mission to deceive, codenamed, Carrier X. One aircraft carrier, led by Capt. Waddell (Charles Bickford) and Cmdr. Bingo Harper (Don Ameche) will lead this charade.
Their fighter pilots will scour the skies but without engaging enemy aircraft. When spotted, they’ll feign fleeing and return to deck. Their carrier will thus zigzag across the Pacific; one freighter masquerading as a fleet. The Americans hope that the enemy will imagine a scattered American fleet. They expect that the Japanese will ambush a supposedly unguarded Midway, where a covertly regrouped U.S. Navy will strike with ferocity.
Unaware of these tactics, U.S. naval rank and file resent this seemingly pacifist policy. For it to work, this phantom carrier and crew will have to pull off a believable routine day after day. They pretend to be pacifists, if not pushovers, when all they want is to attack.
Waddell and Harper have their work cut out for them. Understandably, the bomber squadron assigned to them, led by Lt. Cmdr. Edward Moulton (Dana Andrews) smolders at being ordered to turn tail. Worse, pretended pacifism is costing them personnel and planes.
The usually smiling, comedian-vaudevillian Ameche, clicks here as the unsmiling Harper; he’s devoted to the thankless task of dispassionately leading seamen into battle. A dignified Bickford and relatively subdued Andrews supply the gravitas of a garrison.
‘Fighting Lady’
The film brings alive the city-like feel of an aircraft carrier. The setting maximizes footage from every corner of the Yorktown, nearly 30,000 tons and 900 feet long, that could host well over 2,000 crew members. Hathaway filmed real-life fighter pilot Joseph Rudolf Kristufek from the Yorktown corps, deploying a torpedo from his TBF Avenger torpedo bomber.The mission is meant to be secret, until things are primed for attack. Then, Waddell goes public—and how. In the heat of dogfights, as his pilots bank and roll, pitch and dive their way through the clouds, he orders their inter-squadron radio transmissions to be broadcast across his ship.
Every signaler, gunner, machinist, and deckhand stills, leaning toward the Yorktown’s speakers. Tense, garbled voices of pilots float through, cheering, cautioning, or congratulating another, crying or getting suddenly cut off. Waddell knows his men feel robbed of action. So, when battle arrives, he allows them to feel a part of every little victory, every little loss.
There’s humor, too. On a missile being loaded into a bomber, a cheeky sailor scrawls, “When you hear the noise, one of your carriers is missing.” After weeks by themselves at sea, the men have more than their share of fun when the ship’s film projectionist plays a clip from “Tin Pan Alley.” It’s all they can do to contain themselves when the bewitching Betty Grable waltzes onto their screen with her impish smile.
Unlike talky war films, Hathaway’s has less dialogue. A full minute of silence passes when Waddell receives a top secret order in a sealed envelope. He opens it and allows his officers to read it.
That sense of action over talk permeates the film, whether it’s Moulton’s restraint in handling his boyish bombers or Harper’s iron hand. Harper’s monologue, when it comes at the end, packs a punch. And Ameche makes it count.
