Twelve O'Clock High (1949)
Director: Henry King
Honors:
At the tail end of the year which concluded the 1940s closes
on a heightened note for war features. 20th Century-Fox’s big war
film of 1949 highlights the rigors of mental fatigue from combat and the
ever-present threat of charging to possible death, focusing on the crew of strategic
bombers. Directed by Henry king, one of the industry’s longest and most
successful filmmakers and starring Gregory Peck in what would be considered one
of if not the finest performance of his career, Twelve O’Clock High was
a picture that delivered air warfare to a new level for movie audiences. A fiction
Inspired by real people and events while utilizing actual combat footage the
film would become a major critical success for its day.
Twelve O’Clock High is a war drama about an American
bomber squadron suffering from low morale and its stern commanding officer that
pushes them to a breaking point. We follow the tale of Brigadier General Frank
Savage (Gregory Peck) who after witnessing the low morale from a key bombing
squadron stationed in England assumes command to shape them up and push them
harder for future strategic bombing runs. The crews of the bombers appear
pushed to the brink with more frequent and increasingly dangerous runs, but
savage feels by being tougher on the men, leading by example, and avoiding
becoming too personal attached to the men will help expand their abilities with
future plans in occupied France and eventually Germany. Despite the initial low
morale and physical and emotional fatigue they accomplish great gains in battle.
Following some key successes the crews lighten up on their stance on Savage, allowing
Savage to become more attached to his men. Deeper and more dangerous runs cause
bring rises in casualties causing Savage to have a similar mental and physical
breakdown seen in the men before his command. Savage falls into an unresponsive
state until the bombers return, demonstrating the emotional hardship on any man
pushed too hard during war.
Beautifully bookended as a flashback by Savage’s adjutant,
Major Stovall, played by Dean Jagger in an Oscar winning performance, the film
is given a feeling of a both fond remembrances, as well as the melancholy pain for
the loss of men, bonded by the conflict that were pushed to help win the war.
With nearly all the components of a prestige picture for Fox this pays tribute
to servicemen while analyzing the emotional toll of experiencing the horrors.
Actual aerial war footage would be key to the film’s effectiveness as no
recreation or special effects of this time could possibly do justice to bring
the rigors of war to the screen in such an aerial combat picture. Gregory Peck
carries the film with authority and humanity as a man of duty who comes to
understand the torture that his men were experiencing before his arrival in an
award worthy performance. The result was one of the year’s highest praised
pictures and the premier war feature for Fox at the time.
Immediately the feature presents war more gruesome than many
other war features seen before it. Beginning with a plane crash landing at the
air base the crew exits the craft clearly shaken from the battle from which
they just returned. We have seen many war films where men return from battle
shaken before, but here it just feels deeper. The pilot, exits the craft and soon
becomes physically ill. Medical crews aid the injured crew and they describe
watching fellow crewmen being injured during the flight, losing life and limb.
Looking back from today’s standards it does not sound so bad, but in 1949 when
a stretcher carries a man away without his arm only to see another medic enter
the craft and somberly exit with a blanket obviously holding the dismembered
appendage it somewhat feels more gruesome with films of the late 1940s. No
actual striking or gore appears on screen, but somehow this films hits
audiences in the gut right away in this picture, letting us know how real this
war was despite the film not getting any more gruesome.
Adapted by the novel of the same name that was published
only a year prior, Twelve O’Clock High is based on actual events and the
characters inspired by real people to best represent what life as commanders
and crew of American bombers during World War II. The story does not so much
focus on the air battles or the scenes of combat as it does focus on the psyche
of the crew of bombers which were historically notorious for have low survival
rates for their slow aircraft and relatively light protective firepower. For
men to crew a bomber chances were high that they would not return from a
mission and here we witness the crews asked to do successive missions day after
day, pitting them near death on a regular basis causing their low morale, and
that is the focus of the film.
Gregory Peck in the primary role as Brigadier General Frank
Savage carries with him a stern commander, not too uncommon from the usual
formula of war features, but with a hint of the parental way that Peck was
fondly remembered for in many of his finest performances. The breakthrough of
this critically praised performance is Savage reaching his breaking point, a
catatonic state that we have seen before in his men prior. Now he too had
reached fearing that tempting death many times will only lead to more death,
either of him or a great deal of his men, whom despite without intention he had
come to care for deeply. Supported by cast of fine actors including Hugh
Marlowe as the officer Savage deems too soft and replaces, Gary Merrill as
Savage’s good friend whom Savage demotes during his leadership, and Millard
Mitchell as Major General who pushes Savage beyond what he can do. All actors
play their parts within the roles, but the glue of the movie comes in Dean
Jagger in a relatively small role as Harvey Stovall, the veteran adjutant under
Savage that warms him of what he is doing as Savage falls into the very problems
his men had shared. Jagger’s character supplies the glue of the feature in the
opening and closing scenes of the movie, reminiscing of his time in service,
while supplying much of the humanity within Savage’s story arch.
To bring the reality of the war to any war feature is the
combat scenes. With the focus on air combat it would be difficult to sell the
idea of the drama and authority of the battle since a filmmaker cannot simply
go to a backlot or a movie ranch and attempt to recreate air battles for a camera.
For Twelve O’Clock High the studio would attain the rights to use actual
air battle footage from not only the United States Army Air Force, but footage
recorded by German forces to round out the combat action scenes. Due to the
fact the battle footage was black and white Henry Kong and Fox would settle on producing
the feature in black and white instead of the Technicolor they initially hoped
to present the elaborate film in.
Of course, the production was shot with extensive means to
add to the authentic feels of its subject matter, filming on location at n
Florida based air force base and providing shots with many real bombers taking
off, landing, and several flying in formation for the movie cameras. To
bring home the idea of the danger of air combat Henry King and Fox would hire a
pilot to actually crash land a bomber which is seen earlier in the feature. The
dangerous stunt was performed by famed Hollywood stunt man Paul Mantz, who
would go on to perform many of the most elaborate air stunts in movie history
in his career, including flying the planes that helped capture the vistas for
the experimental widescreen Cinerama movies. Mantz was paid a hefty sum for the
stunt and would be considered the only time B-17 would have taken off with a
crew of only one man, something experts believed could not be done, only to
intentionally crash it.
The film itself does drag at times if you do not allow for
it to take control of your attention. Its heart being in the tale of men
wearied by the very deadly form of war works its way up to the emotional break
of Savage, reminding audiences that being marched into death door was no as
noble of vision as many have been led to think.
The film would become a swift critical success for Fox and
marked the 10th highest grossing feature for the year 1950.
Nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actor and
coming away with Best Supporting Actor and Best Recorded Sound, the feature
left its imprint during award season for 1949. To this day it is considered
Gregory Peck’s finest work as an actor by many film historians. The film would
see much praise from the few bombing veteran that survived the war, describing
the feature as accurate as can be. To this day it remains rather powerful
premier air WWII film many have seen.
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