TWELVE O'CLOCK HIGH Movie Review

1949 Henry King

Most war films that are focused on a single campaign examine it either through the eyes of a low-level combatant who's on the front lines or through the eyes of an officer who's removed from the action. This unorthodox “tale-told-from-memory” attempts to combine the two approaches. The subject is American precision daylight bombing raids by B-17s based in England. According to the film's premise, that tactic was the key to winning the war in Europe. Daylight bombing was so accurate that it destroyed German industry and so its ability to prosecute the war. Viewers of a strongly populist persuasion may be suspicious of the filmmakers’ sympathetic portrayal of top-level staff officers, but no one can deny their rigorous attempts to nail down the physical and psychological details of the air war.

In 1949, dapper American Harvey Stovall (Dean Jagger) visits his London haberdasher. Admiring his new hat in a store window, he spots a battered toby jug and buys it on the spot. It's the key that takes him back to his war years with the 918th Bomber Group at Archbury, England. The 918th is a “hard-luck” outfit. Under the leadership of Col. Keith Davenport (Gary Merrill), the 21 B-17s are suffering catastrophic losses every time they take off on their daytime missions. Why, Gen. Pritchard (Millard Mitchell) asks, and sends Gen. Frank Savage (Gregory Peck) to find the answer. At some length, Savage deduces that Davenport “overidentifies” with his men. He cares so much about them as individuals that the group suffers. Pritchard orders Savage to take over the 918th and turn it around.

He does. From the moment Savage sets foot on the base, he kicks ass and takes names. Nobody is safe, from the sentry (Kenneth Tobey) to Maj. Stovall. When Savage stands in front of the assembled pilots and crewmen, he thunders, “Stop making plans! Forget about going home! Consider yourselves already dead. Once you accept that idea, it won't be so tough.” The men take more convincing, and that's the story of the film.

It works for several reasons. First, director Henry King, a solid journeyman filmmaker, makes the most of an excellent script by novelists Sy Bartlett and Beirne Lay Jr. Second, cinematographer Leon Shamroy uses ultra-crisp black-and-white photography to give the action a richly textured, evocative look. They also borrowed real combat aerial footage to heighten the sense of realism. In every scene—on the ground or in the air—the film seems absolutely authentic; the curving walls of the Quonset huts where the fliers live and work, ground crews riding bicycles out to meet the incoming bombers, the words painted over the waist hatch of a B17 “Where Angels and Generals Fear to Tread.”

The film also gets the psychological details right, and those are infinitely more important. Early on, a pilot calmly describes how he had to scrape his own frozen blood off the windshield before he could see to land the plane, and the rest of the film shows that he was not exaggerating. These are men who are pushed to give “maximum effort” and then something more. When they have gone that far, they react in different ways, none of them easy to take. This is such heightened emotional material that it's difficult for actors to handle properly. This ensemble does a letter-perfect job. Jagger deservedly won a Supporting Actor Academy Award. (The film also won the Oscar for Sound and it was nominated for Best Picture.) Peck, also nominated, turns in one of the most carefully modulated performances in his substantial career. He lost, and had to wait through three more nominations until 1962, when he was recognized for his role as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. At heart, Frank Savage is cut from the same cloth. Peck invests both characters with a core decency that makes them compelling, sympathetic characters. No matter how abrasive Savage is, viewers know that he's trying to do the right things for the right reasons.

In that respect, he represents every major character. This is not a film about good guys and bad guys. It's about guys who are struggling desperately to find the right way to do an impossibly difficult job. The unexpected ending, reportedly based on a real incident, is altogether appropriate. Though Twelve O'Clock High is no more critical of the military than any of the flag-waving propaganda pieces made during the war, it does take a much closer look at the human costs. In that regard, it can be seen as a bridge between Sands of Iwo Jima and The Best Years of Our Lives.

Cast: Gregory Peck (Gen. Frank Savage), Hugh Marlowe (Lt. Col. Ben Gately), Gary Merrill (Col. Keith Davenport), Millard Mitchell (Gen. Pritchard), Dean Jagger (Maj. Harvey Stovall), Paul Stewart (Capt. “Doc” Kaiser), Robert Arthur (Sgt. McIllhenny), John Kellogg (Maj. Cobb), Sam Edwards (Birdwell), Russ Conway (Operations officer), Lawrence Dobkin (Capt. Twombley), Kenneth Tobey (Sentry); Written by: Sy Bartlett, Beirne Lay Jr.; Cinematography by: Leon Shamroy; Music by: Alfred Newman. Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck. Awards: Academy Awards ‘49: Best Sound, Best Supporting Actor (Jagger), National Film Registry ‘98; Nominations: Academy Awards ‘49: Best Actor (Peck), Best Picture; New York Film Critics Awards ‘50: Best Actor (Peck). Running Time: 132 minutes. Format: VHS, Beta, LV.