| Twelve O'Clock High | |
|---|---|
 original film poster |
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| Directed by | Henry King |
| Produced by | Darryl F. Zanuck |
| Written by | Sy Bartlett Henry King Beirne Lay, Jr. |
| Starring | Gregory Peck Hugh Marlowe Gary Merrill |
| Music by | Alfred Newman |
| Cinematography | Leon Shamroy |
| Distributed by | Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation |
| Release date(s) | December 21 1949 (Los Angeles, California) (premiere) |
| Running time | 132 min. |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Twelve O'Clock High is a 1949 film about the United States Army's Eighth Air Force crews who flew daylight bombing missions against Germany and occupied France during World War II. The film was adapted by Sy Bartlett, Henry King (uncredited) and Beirne Lay Jr. from the 1948 novel by Bartlett and Lay. It was directed by King and starred Gregory Peck as Brigadier General Frank Savage, Gary Merrill as Colonel Keith Davenport, Millard Mitchell as General Patrick Pritchard, Dean Jagger as Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) Harvey Stovall, Hugh Marlowe as Lieutenant Colonel Ben Gately, and Robert Arthur as Sergeant McIllhenny. The film won Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Dean Jagger) and Best Sound, Recording. It was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Gregory Peck) and Best Picture.
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Synopsis
The film begins in 1949, as American attorney Harvey Stovall (Dean Jagger) spies a familiar toby jug in an English antique shop. He buys it, boards a train and then bicycles to the abandoned airbase at Archbury where he served in World War II. The film then flashes back to 1942. Colonel Keith Davenport (Gary Merrill) is the commanding officer of the 918th Bomb Group, a hard-luck unit suffering from poor morale. He has become too close to his men and is troubled by the losses sustained. General Patrick Pritchard (Millard Mitchell), commanding general of the VIII Bomber Command, Eighth Air Force, recognizes that Davenport himself is the problem and after a disastrous mission in which half the Group's bombers were shot down, relieves him of command. Brigadier General Frank Savage (Gregory Peck), General Pritchard's A-3 (Operations Officer) who commanded the first B-17 group to fight over Europe, is his replacement. Savage finds his new command in disarray and begins to address the discipline problems. He deals with everyone so harshly that the men begin to detest him. At one point, he closes down the officers club bar as punishment. Savage is particularly hard on Colonel Ben Gately (Hugh Marlowe), the Group Air Executive Officer, placing him under arrest for being Absent Without Leave. Gately tries to challenge Savage, but the general demotes him to command of a B-17 Flying Fortress named "Leper Colony", manned by the least competent airmen in the group. Whenever any man in the 918th fails to measure up, Savage transfers him to Gately's plane. Major Joe Cobb (John Kellogg), one of Savage's squadron commanders, takes Gately's place as Air Exec. Upset by Savage's stern brand of leadership, all of the 918th's pilots apply for transfers. Savage asks the Group Adjutant, Major Harvey Stovall, to delay processing their applications, to get himself more time to turn the Group around. Harvey, skating on the thin edge of military legality, does so. The 918th resumes combat operations, and Savage continues to earn everyone's enmity with his harsh post-mission critiques. However, the airmen and pilots begin to change their minds after he leads them on a mission in which the 918th is the only group to bomb the target and all of the aircraft make it back safely. Savage tries to enlist a young pilot, Medal of Honor-nominee Lieutenant Jesse Bishop (Robert Patten) to help him change the attitude of the other pilots. Bishop eventually comes to believe in the general, becoming a surrogate son to him. When the Inspector General arrives to check out the unrest, Bishop's example convinces the other pilots to withdraw their requests for transfer. Later, Savage learns that Gately has been hospitalized, having flown two missions with a chipped vertebrae that caused him acute pain. Gately's stoicism in flying without complaint despite his injury brings about a rapprochement between him and Savage, and Gately is reinstated as the 918th's Air Exec. As the air war advances deeper into Germany, missions become longer and riskier, with enemy resistance increasingly intense. Many of Savage's best men are shot down or killed. General Pritchard tries to get Savage to return to a staff job with him, but Savage refuses because he feels that the 918th Group isn't quite ready to stand up without him yet. Pritchard reluctantly leaves Savage in command because he needs a proven leader for two important upcoming missions. The first of these missions, aimed at destroying Germany's ball bearing industry, has the Luftwaffe throwing everything available at the bomber force. Although the target is hit, the 918th takes a beating, losing six of twenty-one B-17s. Savage watches Cobb's airplane blow up from a direct flak hit after he has to turn the bomber stream to pass directly over a known antiaircraft battery, and is shaken by the loss of one of his best combat commanders. On returning to base, Savage concludes that a second strike on the same target is necessary. A follow-up mission is scheduled for the next day. However, as the Flying Fortresses are warming up for takeoff, Savage is unable to haul himself up into his B-17. He suffers a nervous breakdown, finally becoming catatonic. As had Keith Davenport before him, Savage allowed himself to care too much for "his boys" and has paid the price. Gately takes over the air command and the mission lead. Savage's fate is unclear. (In the novel, he returns to the United States to take command of the Second Air Force.) The flashback ends; Harvey Stovall rides away from the airbase on his bicycle.
Background
Twelve O'Clock High was produced with the full cooperation of the United States Air Force and made use of actual combat footage during the battle scenes. A good deal of the production was filmed at a working air base, Eglin Air Force Base [1] Screenwriters Bartlett and Lay drew on their own wartime experiences with Eighth Air Force bomber units. Veterans of the heavy bomber campaign frequently cite Twelve O'Clock High as the only Hollywood film that accurately captured their combat experiences. Along with the 1948 film Command Decision, it marked a turning away from the optimistic, morale-boosting style of wartime films and toward a gritty realism that dealt directly with the human costs of war. Both films deal with the theme of "daylight precision bombing" without the need for fighter escort, the basic Army Air Force doctrine at the start of the Second World War. In retrospect, this was a strategic mistake. Daylight precision bombing became a viable technique only after long-range fighters were developed (notably the P-51 Mustang) capable of escorting bombers all the way to the target and back. Savage is modeled on Colonel Frank A. Armstrong, Pritchard on General Ira Eaker, the fictional 918th Bomb Group on the actual 306th Bomb Group. The film's most significant deviation from history comes in its climax: Savage's psychological breakdown was not based on any real-life event but was intended to portray the effects of intense stress experienced by many airmen. This film is widely used in both the military and civilian worlds to teach the principles of leadership. It is required viewing at all the American service academies. It has also been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Historical counterparts of characters
Colonel Frank A. Armstrong, Jr. (1902–1969)
General Savage was created as a composite of several group commanders whom the authors knew well, including Colonel (later General) Curtis LeMay, Colonel (later brigadier general) Frederick W. Castle, and Colonel John K. Gerhart. The latter two officers had also been sent down by General Eaker from his staff to relieve the commanders of two B-17 groups whose first month in combat had resulted in higher than normal losses. However the primary inspiration for Savage was Frank A. Armstrong, who commanded the 306th Bomb Group on which the 918th was modeled. The name "Savage" was inspired by Armstrong's Cherokee heritage. Armstrong, Castle, and screen-writer Beirne Lay had been three of the six officers accompanying General Eaker to England in February, 1942 to set up the headquarters for the 8th Air Force's Bomber Command, and Armstrong had worked closely with Sy Bartlett at 8th Air Force headquarters. In addition to his work with the 306th, which lasted only six weeks and consisted primarily of rebuilding the chain of command within the group, Armstrong had earlier performed a similar task with the 97th Bomb Group, and many of the training and disciplinary scenes in Twelve O'Clock High derive from that experience. The 918th was modeled after the 306th BG primarily because that group remained a significant part of the Eighth Air Force throughout the war in Europe, whereas the 97th BG transferred to the Mediterranean shortly after Armstrong relinquished command. Lieutenant General Frank A. Armstrong, Jr. retired from the U.S. Air Force, July 31, 1962. He died on September 1, 1969.
Major General Ira C. Eaker (1896–1987)
The character of Major General Pat Pritchard was modeled on that of the VIII Bomber Command's first commander, Maj.Gen. Ira C. Eaker. He had been picked by the commander of the Army Air Forces, General Henry Arnold, to build from scratch a strategic bombing force in England. He took Armstrong from a headquarters job in Washington D.C. to be the senior member of his neophyte staff and eventually made him one of his top combat leaders. Lieutenant General Eaker retired, August 31, 1947. More than 30 years after his retirement, by Act of Congress — April 26, 1985 — President Ronald Reagan presented him with his fourth star as a full general. General Ira C. Eaker died, August 6, 1987.
Colonel Charles B. Overacker
The character of Colonel Keith Davenport was based on the first commander of the 306th Bomb Group, Col. Charles B. Overacker, nicknamed "Chip." Of all the personalities portrayed in Twelve O'Clock High, that of Colonel Davenport most closely parallels his true-life counterpart. The early scene in which Davenport confronts Savage about a mission order was a close recreation of an actual event, as was his relief. Overacker's sins, however, were more severe than those attributed to Davenport, sufficiently so that they were not detailed in either book or film but only suggested; and occurred over an eight-week period, not the brief interval depicted. He was relieved after his entire group turned back from a mission for other than mechanical reasons. After moving up to Eaker's staff, Overacker imprudently criticized Eaker in an official analysis and was sent back to the United States, where he spent the remainder of the war as commander of the Proving Ground Command's electronic test center at Eglin Field, Florida.
Lieutenant John C. Morgan (1914–1991)
Lt. Jesse Bishop, who belly lands in the B-17 next to the runway at the beginning of the film and was nominated for the Medal of Honor, has his true-life counterpart in Second Lieutenant John C. Morgan. The description of Bishop's fight to control the bomber after his pilot was hit in the head by a 20mm cannon shell is taken almost verbatim from Morgan's Medal of Honor citation. Details may be found in The 12 O'Clock High Logbook.
Sergeant Donald Bevan
The character of Sgt. McIllhenny was drawn from a member of the 306th Bomb Group, Sgt. Donald Bevan, a qualified gunner who was assigned ground jobs including part-time driver for the commander of his squadron. Bevan had received publicity as a "stowaway gunner" (similar to McIllhenny in the film), even though in reality he had been invited to fly missions. Like McIllhenny he proved to be a "born gunner." Bevan, who flew 17 missions, was shot down on April 17, 1943 and spent the remainder of the war as a prisoner of war in Stalag 17B, a German POW camp in Austria. There, along with fellow POW Edmund Trzcinski, Bevan outlined the script for a hit Broadway play that was later made into a Hollywood film, Stalag 17.
Major Paul Tibbets (1915–2007)
During pre-production for Twelve O'Clock High, author Sy Bartlett petitioned the Air Force to have Colonel Paul Tibbets assigned as technical advisor for the film. [1] Not only had Tibbets and Armstrong flown B-17s together in England, but Bartlett also revealed that Tibbets, by then renowned as the pilot of the B-29 "Enola Gay" which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, had inspired the novel's "tough-guy" character, Major Joe Cobb. Tibbets was initially approved for technical advisor but the job was eventually given to Colonel John Derussy. The part of Cobb was played by character actor John Kellogg, who won it over a dozen more well-known Hollywood actors.
Television series
Twelve O'Clock High later became a television series, also called Twelve O'Clock High that premiered on the ABC network in 1964 and ran for three seasons. Robert Lansing played General Savage. Much of the combat footage seen in the film was reused in the television series. The B-17 bomber shown in one such sequence was that of Lieutenant Colonel Robert Webb, who earned one of his eight Distinguished Flying Cross awards in the action depicted. Many of the television show's ground scenes were filmed at an airfield at Chino, California, where a replica of a control tower, typical of the type seen at an 8th Air Force base in England, was built. The airfield itself was used in the immediate postwar period as a dump for soon-to-be-scrapped fighters and bombers and was used for the penultimate scene in The Best Years of Our Lives when Dana Andrews relives his wartime experiences and goes on to rebuild his life.
Production notes
Paul Mantz, Hollywood's leading stunt pilot, was paid a then-unprecedented sum to crash-land a B-17 bomber for one early scene in the film. Frank Tallman, Mantz' partner in Tallmantz Aviation, wrote in his autobiography that it was he, not Mantz, who performed the crash stunt. He said that while many B-17s had been landed by one pilot, as far as he knew this flight was the only time that a B-17 ever took off with only one pilot; nobody was sure that it could be done. This allegation is at odds with both Twentieth Century-Fox press releases made during production and with research done by Duffin and Matheis for The 12 O'Clock High Logbook. The sequence where Dean Jagger's character Harvey Stovall returns to "Archbury" was shot at RAF Chelveston. Today, other than a small U.S. Air Force military housing section nothing remains of the base.
Reviews
An influential review by Bosley Crowther of the New York Times was indicative of many contemporary reviews. He noted that the film focused more on the human element than the aircraft or machinery of war. "How much can a man give? When the U.S. 8th Army Air Force 918th Bombardment group is ordered on their fourth harrowing mission in four hard days, Brigadier General Frank Savage (Gregory Peck) demands 'maximum effort.'"[2] In later years, the New York Times ranked Twelve O'Clock High as one of the "Best 1000" films. Although there may have been some concerns over the lengthy plot line, Christopher Null of FilmCritic.com comments about Peck's performance, "his story takes too long to get going and retreads itself once too often, to be honest. Still, some stellar performances make this a minor war classic."[3]
References
- Notes
- ^ Duffin and Matheis 2005, p. 61.
- ^ New York Times
- ^ Rotten Tomatoes
- Bibliography
- Army Air Forces Aid Society. The Official Guide to the Army Air Forces . New York: Simon and Schuster, 1944.
- Caidin, Martin. Black Thursday. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1960. ISBN 0-553-26729-9.
- Dolan, Edward F. Jr. Hollywood Goes to War. London: Bison Books, 1985. ISBN 0-86124-229-7.
- Duffin, Alan T. and Matheis, Paul. The 12 O'Clock High Logbook. Albany, Georgia: Bearmanor Media, 2005. ISBN 1-59393-033-X.
- Hardwick, Jack and Schnepf, Ed. "A Viewer's Guide to Aviation Movies." The Making of the Great Aviation Films. General Aviation Series, Volume 2, 1989.
- Kerrigan, Evans E. American War Medals and Decorations. New York: Viking Press, 1964, ISBN 0-67012-101-0.
- Lay, Beirne Jr. and Bartlett, Sy. 12 O'Clock High. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948 (Reprint 1989). ISBN 0-942397-16-9.
- Medal of Honor Recipients, World War II (M-S)
- Murphy, Edward F. Heroes of WWII. Novato, California: Presidio Press, 1990, ISBN 0-345-37545-9.
- Orriss, Bruce. When Hollywood Ruled the Skies: The Aviation Film Classics of World War II. Hawthorn, California: Aero Associates Inc., 1984. ISBN 0-9613088-0-X.
