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The flying fortress and its human center, a beautiful spot of order in war's chaos. The B-17 bomber has a feminine name and a motley crew, from pensive pilot (John Ridgely) to wiseacre ex-cabbie (George Tobias), off to Honolulu on December 6th they go. Radio reports of Pearl Harbor sound fantastical ("Who you got tuned in? Orson Welles?") until flaming craters are glimpsed through the clouds, Roosevelt's declaration officially seals the payback mission. "Your Uncle Sam is a pretty tough old gentleman. You just wait till he gets mad." Airborne fraternity suits the Howard Hawks ideal of elegance in the face of peril, a propagandistic bulletin finessed into an intense symphonie métallique of men and machines. Co-pilot (Gig Young) and private (Ray Montgomery) compete for the sister of the bombardier (Arthur Kennedy), the navigator (Charles Drake) is the son of a Lafayette Escadrille ace, the tail gunner (John Garfield) is a bitter washout undergoing a conversion. "Every man has got to rely on every other man to do the right thing at the right time." Submerging emotion is an art, the crew chief (Harry Carey) sees his son reduced to a fistful of mementos in a handkerchief and allows himself an instant of grief before returning to the battle at hand. (Maternal farewells and yapping mutts are other potential pitfalls of sentimentality splendidly dodged.) Days and nights in the Pacific Theater, "a sky full of Zeros," Faulkner's deathbed liftoff. The fallen plane's propeller spins again to cap the resurrection, laborare est orare. "What kind of lunatics have we got in this Air Corps? Don't you know what's impossible?" The imperial fleet's annihilation is followed by an armada headed for Tokyo, where "The Star-Spangled Banner" is promised to be played "with two-ton bombs." Ford has They Were Expendable as a friendly riposte. Cinematography by James Wong Howe. With Ward Wood, James Brown, Stanley Ridges, Willard Robertson, Edward Brophy, Moroni Olsen, and Faye Emerson. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |