Twelve O'Clock High
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| 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 Air Forces 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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[edit] Synopsis
1949, London. Harvey Stovall, successful American attorney, stops to admire the hat he had just bought in the window of an antique shop. As he is about to turn away, his eye is caught by a toby jug with grinning face of Robin Hood. When he is told that the Toby had been purchased at an auction at Archbury, he realizes what it is. He takes the Toby with him on a trip to his old air base at Archbury, standing on the now-empty runway and seeing the abandoned buildings which had once been so busy and important. There he flashes back to 1943, when he was a "retread", a Army Reserve officer, a veteran of World War I recalled to active duty with the Army Air Force in World War II at a time when the Allies came perilously close to losing the air war in Europe.
Colonel Keith Davenport is the commanding officer of the 918th Bomb Group, which has a reputation as a "hard-luck group" and is suffering from poor morale. Brigadier General Frank Savage, who had led the first ten missions over Europe and General Pritchard, commanding general of the VIII Bomber Command of the Eighth Air Force see that the problem is Davenport. Colonel Davenport is so concerned over the welfare of men he has trained and nurtured that he cannot deal with the fact they may be killed on each mission they fly. After a disastrous mission in which half the group is shot down, Davenport is relieved of command. Savage is assigned by Pritchard to take over the 918th.
Savage finds his new command in disarray. True to his name, the General deals with everyone harshly, so harshly that the men detest him. A clerk, Sgt. McIllhenny, is out of uniform and Savage demotes him to private on the spot to set an example to others (restoring his rank when McIllhenny is assigned as his driver because "general officers rate sergeants as drivers"). The 918th's second-in-command, Lt. Col. Ben Gately, is absent from his post as temporary Commanding Officer following Davenport's relief. Gen. Savage sends the MPs to arrest him. He closes down the officers club bar, with the unspoken statement that men are allowed to drink; unproven boys are not.
When Colonel Gately is brought in, Savage calls him a coward for avoiding combat missions. Gately is a graduate of the West Point and allegedly the most experienced four-engine pilot in the Group. When Gately threatens to bring charges of personal abuse and exceeding his lawful authority, Savage calls his bluff by putting in a call to General Pritchard, and dares Gately to explain his conduct to his father, a lieutenant general serving in the Pentagon. Gately withdraws his statement.
In a final humiliation, Savage removes Gately from his position of Group Executive Officer (Air), commonly called the 'air exec,' and makes him the airplane commander of a B-17 named Leper Colony, to be crewed by the worst airmen in the group. As the story progresses, Savage transfers to Leper Colony any crewman who fails to measure up. The tough Major Joe Cobb, one of Savage's squadron commanders, is made the new Air Exec.
Savage had expected to have to deal with a few malcontents, offering them transfers out of the 918th. A crisis ensues when all of the pilots put in for transfer. Savage asks the Group Adjutant, Major Harvey Stovall, to delay their applications; but it is questionably legal despite Harvey's clever manipulation of the system.
The group stands down from combat flying and undergoes intensive retraining at Savage's hands. The 918th practises formation flying endlessly, much to the displeasure of the pilots who resent Savage for not even bothering to take the controls on these practice missions.
The 918th resumes combat operations, and Savage continues to earn the crews' enmity with his blistering post-mission critiques. The airmen and pilots begin to respect the general, however. When he leads a mission, all 21 of the Group's aircraft always make it back home. On one raid the General goes so far as to fake radio trouble to provide a rationale for ignoring a recall order resulting from bad weather, so that the 918th was the only group to hit the target on that mission.
Savage tries to win the loyalty of a young pilot, Lieutenant Jesse Bishop (who holds the Medal of Honor) to help him change the attitude of the other pilots; but Bishop is depressed over the loss of friends in combat and resists. Eventually he comes to believe in the General and becomes a surrogate son to General Savage. When an Inspector General arrives to find out if there is any substance to the rumors that Savage has been sitting on legitimate requests for transfer, Bishop leads the pilots in withdrawing their requests for transfer.
Group morale improves. The first raid on Germany — to the port city of Wilhelmshaven — is launched, and Savage finds himself in the curious position of having to chew out the group's chaplain; Lt. Colonel Harvey Stovall (now his Ground Exec); and his driver/clerk, Sergeant McIllhenny for stowing away on the mission as air gunnersIt is a sign of just how far the Group has come under his leadership that the ground echelon doesn't want to be left out of the fighting.
Some time after the Wilhelmshaven raid Savage learns that Gately has been hospitalized, having flown two subsequent missions with a chipped vertebra following a ditching in the English Channel that left him in acute pain, exacerbated by flying for long hours at high altitude. Gately's courage in flying without complaint despite his injury brings about a rapprochement between Gately and Savage and Gately is reinstated as the air exec.
As the air war moves over Germany, missions become longer and riskier and German resistance more intense. Many of Savage's best men are shot down or killed, including Lt. Bishop. General Pritchard tries to force Savage to return to a staff job with him. Savage refuses because he feels he can't let go of the 918th, that the group isn't quite ready yet. Pritchard reluctantly leaves Savage in command of the 918th, for two very important missions are coming up.
On the first of these missions, Savage leads the entire VIIIth Bomber Command on what is supposed to be a one-two punch at the Hambrucken and Bonhofen ball bearing works. This mission is critical because Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe equipemnt depends on ball bearings. On the day, Savage's perfect record is broken when fighters and flak combine to shoot down a third of the 918th. Major Cobb is shot down and killed over the target and the bomber force takes a beating. Nevertheless the mission is considered a success.
The next day, a second strike on the Hambrucken-Bonhofen ball bearing complex is ordered by Pinetree. The 918th, re-equipped and back at full strength, will be the lead group of the Eighth Air Force, and Savage will lead the group. However, exhaustion, stress, the isolation of command and guilt at ordering 'his boys' out to die finally push Savage into a nervous breakdown as he tries to climb into his bomber. Gately, now a seasoned combat commander, assumes air command of the Group and takes the mission lead. Savage enters a fugue state, staring at something only he can see, sitting unmoving in his quarters until the 918th returns after having successfully bombed the target.
Keith Davenport (on hand to watch the mission takeoff) and Harvey Stovall conclude that Savage has made a superhuman effort, given everything he has. Davenport understands that Savage thinks himself a failure and tells him, "You think you aren't up there with them? You're riding up there right now at every crew station. In every cockpit." Savage finally relaxes when the B-17s return and symbolically retires by going to sleep. The flashback concludes with Harvey Stovall leaving Savage and watching the returning planes roaring low overhead.
His reminiscences ended, Harvey Stovall climbs back onto his bicycle and rides away as the end titles roll.
[edit] Background
Twelve O'Clock High was produced with the full cooperation of the (by then) United States Air Force and made use of actual combat footage during the battle scenes. 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, notably the P-51 Mustang, capable of escorting bombers all the way to the target and back entered service in 1944.
Savage is modeled on Colonel Frank A. Armstrong, Pritchard on General Ira Eaker, the fictional 918th Bomb Group on the actual 306th Bomb Group, and the climactic raid on the Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission of August 17, 1943. 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.
[edit] Historical counterparts of characters
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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 Force's, 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] Lieutenant John C. Morgan (1914–1991)
Lt. Jesse Bishop, who bellies 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] Major Paul Tibbets (1915–)
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 well-known 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 another Air Force colonel. The part of Cobb was played by character actor John Kellogg, who won it over a dozen more well-known Hollywood actors.
[edit] Additional production information
The Toby Jug on the mantle in the Officer's Club facing the wall is drawn from real life traditions. Turning the jug to face the room was a way to notify crew members in the Club of an upcoming mission. Based on fact, the "turning of the Toby", or similar codes were utilised by the RAF in World War I and adopted by many groups of the 8th Air Force in World War II. [2]
[edit] 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 (actor) played General Savage. Much of the combat footage seen in the film was used 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.
Paul Mantz, Hollywood's leading stunt pilot, was paid a then-unprecedented sum to crash-land a B-17 bomber for one early scene. 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; and 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.
[edit] 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.'"[3] In later years, the NY 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 (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."[4]
[edit] References
- ^ Duffin and Matheis 2005, p. 61.
- ^ For more details of the Toby Jug, visit www.twelveoclockhigh.biz
- ^ New York Times
- ^ Rotten Tomatoes
- 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.
- Duffin, Alan T. and Matheis, Paul. The 12 O'Clock High Logbook. Albany, Georgia: Bearmanor Media, 2005. ISBN 1-59393-033-X.
- Kerrigan, Evans E. American War Medals and Decorations. New York: Viking Press, 1964, ISBN 0-67012-101-0.
- Lay Beirne, Jr. and Sy Bartlett. 12 O'Clock High. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948 (Reprint 1989). ISBN 0-942397-16-9.
- Murphy, Edward F. Heroes of WWII. Novato, California: Presidio Press, 1990, ISBN 0-345-37545-9.
