NFR Project: 'Twelve O'Clock High' (1949)

 

NFR Project: “Twelve O’Clock High”

Dir: Henry King

Scr: Henry King, Sy Bartlett, Beirne Lay Jr.

Pho: Leon Shamroy

Ed: Barbara McLean

Premiere: Dec. 21, 1949

132 min.

American war movies made during World War II were pure propaganda – gung-ho adventure stories in which the bad guys, the Nazis and the “Japs,” always lost. There was no shading, no questioning of the effort. It took a few years for more nuanced examinations of the conflict to appear on film.

One of the best is Twelve O’Clock High. It’s the fact-based story of an American bomber group in England in 1942. At that time, they were the only part of the American fighting forces to do battle with Nazi Germany. In order to blunt the German war effort, they engaged in daylight bombing of enemy targets. The difficulty and danger of these sorties were magnified by the fact that Allied fighter planes at the time did not have the range that would allow them to protect the bombers. B-17s flew into enemy airspace guarded only by their own guns.

The pressure was intense, as the higher-ups called for “maximum effort” – an unrelenting schedule of bombing raids, day after day, despite losses and despite the fatigue of its crews. Twelve O’Clock High takes on the story of the imaginary 918^th Bomber Group. Its efficiency is questioned, and complaints center on the attitude of its commander, Col. Davenport (Gary Merrill). Major Gen. Pritchard (Millard Mitchell) decides to replace him with Brigadier Gen. Savage (Gregory Peck), a by-the-book man who takes the tough-love approach with his fliers.

He is assisted by the capable and thoughtful Group Adjutant, Major Stovall (Dean Jagger) and the group doctor, Major Kaiser (Paul Stewart). Savage reads the riot act to his men, demoting some and disciplining others. All the pilots request transfers.

Savage delays their requests while he struggles to earn their confidence. He finds himself moved by the efforts and attitudes of his airmen, and begins to unbend. The transfer requests are withdrawn.

The action takes place in and around the base; the film could be a stage play save for a long combat sequence late in the film, culled entirely from documentary footage.

Gradually, he begins to identify with his men. He becomes more and more concerned with their survival, as the missions become longer and more devastating to the attackers. Finally, Savage finds himself incapable of entering his airplane for a mission. Catatonic, he is returned to base while his men fly off without him. It’s only when they return safely that he snaps out of it and goes to sleep.

All this is bracketed by the post-war visit of Stovall to the old field – this is a memory play, his memory. We never learn what happened to Savage.

The movie is a textbook study of the management of men – in this case, men in battle. Despite the formalities and conventions of military life, the human factor bleeds through and engulfs even the hardest-hearted general. Peck is solid as Savage, and Jagger delivers a Best Supporting Actor Oscar-winning performance as Stovall. Gary Merrill and Millard Mitchell, usually not seen in centra roles, do a great job in their performances. Hugh Marlow, in particular, makes am memorable impression as disgraced pilot Gately.

Vulnerable men try to do the impossible, and they largely succeed. But at what cost?

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: White Heat.

NFR Project: 'The Lead Shoes' (1949)

NFR Project: “The Lead Shoes”

Dir: Sidney Peterson

Premiere: 1949

17 min.

Uh, OK. An experimental film, shot in surrealist style. A young woman drags an empty diving suit around. Hopscotch is played in slow motion. Blood splatters from a loaf of bread. There is no attempt to make sense of things. This film is an exercise in non-narrative cinema. As such, I guess that it is successful – on its terms. For me, it is merely a self-indulgent curio.

 

 

 

 

 

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Twelve O’Clock High.

 

 

NFR Project: 'The Heiress' (1949)

 

NFR Project: “The Heiress”

Dir: William Wyler

Scr: Augustus Goetz, Ruth Goetz

Pho: Leo Tover

Ed: William Hornbeck

Premiere: Oct. 6, 1949

115 min.

If ever you want to take a master class in acting, look no further than The Heiress. Although it won Oscars for Best Original Score, Best Costume Design, and Best Art Direction, it is the performances of the three principals – Ralph Richardson, Olivia de Havilland, and Montgomery Clift – that make it an extraordinary film. Let me explain.

First, the source material for the film was the hit 1947 play of the same name, by Augustus and Ruth Goetz, based in turn on the Henry James’ 1880 novel, Washington Square. It’s the story of a rather plain-looking, uncurious, and sheltered young woman, Catherine Sloper (de Havilland) who lives with her wealthy doctor father (Richardson) in luxury. They do not revel in it, they take it as their due. Dr. Sloper resents his daughter, as her birth caused the death of his beloved, beautiful, intelligent, and talented wife.

Catherine is prodded into attending a dance. She is approached by a young and handsome destitute upper-class fortune hunter, Morris Townsend (Clift), who tells her sweet lies and manipulates her into wanting to marry him. Dr. Sloper is onto Morris from the outset, and comments acidly on him, the proposed marriage, and on Catherine’s despised existence in general. Sloper’s barely concealed hostility and contempt for Catherine poison his words of warning about Morris. She ignores them. In fact, she touts her independence, insisting she will live on the $10,000 she has outright rather than on her father’s $30,000.

Finally, the two young lovers agree to elope. Morris finds out that Sloper has changed his will, and that if she marries him, she will not get the $30,000. He makes tender declarations of love, and vanishes. Catherine sits in the parlor, packed, ready to be whisked away. Eventually the truth becomes obvious. He’s not coming.

Fast forward a few years. Sloper is presumably dead. Catherine is still needlepointing, alone in her fabulous Washington Square home. Guess who comes to visit? I won’t spoil the ending, but it is extremely satisfying.

Wyler adapted no fewer than 12 stage plays into movies in his directing career. He was an expert at filming unobtrusively, giving his actors space to work, capturing that pleasure one gets when one sees a superior live performance.

He lets Richardson, de Havilland, and Clift inhabit a scene, really playing it instead of skating over it. The characters seem lived-in. Wyler keeps a respectable distance from the actors, lets them work through a scene slowly if they need to, giving them time to react, to indicate. He creates a superior motion picture by letting his actors work.

The dialogue is highly mannered, in the style of the repressed upper class in mid-to-late 19^th century American society, which was the landscape Henry James painted, again and again. Everyone speaks a carefully coded, polite, formal language – you must discern the emotions from other, visual, cues. (Until Morris appears, there is no display of emotion in the film. How liberating his faux endearments must have felt!) The formal language, the buried emotion of James: similar to the classic samurai film, oddly. A similar hierarchy.

Richardson is best at this: he can steal a scene just standing and staring . . . just a little too hard. De Havilland has the time of her life morphing from a mindless innocent into a wiser, sadder woman, one infinitely more intelligent than the men around her. Clift has to play a heel. He is an inspired con artist, one who lies glibly and convincingly, so much so that you feel he is amazed by his own ability to deceive and manipulate others. He is a very devil. The three clash together in quiet rooms.

The settings are sumptuous and solid, a naturalistic replication of the look of the period. Everyone is dressed to the nines (in fact they never reveal anything of the body), stiffly, at attention. The cinematography is tight, precise. Displays of passion are almost unknown, and the most intense emotions are enunciated on transits up and town the tasteful stairs of their home. An immense amount of emotion comes cascading down through a trio who would never utter a loud word, but who would negotiate the emotional shifts James and the Goetzs put them through.

Miriam Hopkins, a starlet of the 1930s, here plays a dotty, romance-besotted aunt. And Betty Linley, who I've never heard of, has a great scene as Morris' sister, Mrs. Montgomery.

Aaron Copland’s score is instantly identifiable as in his style, but for all that it is as subdued and complex as the story itself. He won the Oscar. And by the way, de Havilland won the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance here. She clearly conveys Catherine’s heady trip into the world of feeling.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: The Lead Shoes.