Twelve O'Clock High (1949)

This is a good, old-fashioned war movie. Made toward the end of Hollywood's golden age, it is exciting, large-scale, and patriotic. It stars Gregory Peck as the commander of a squadron of Flying Fortress crews stationed in England at the beginning of the US involvement in World War 2. This was long before any ground action, and the Americans were often the only Allied troops fighting the Germans. They suffered heavy casualties, flew an impossible number of missions, and suffered horrifically high casualty rates. Nonetheless, as Peck must convince his crews, theirs was an important mission, perhaps the most important in the early stages of the war.

Peck has to step in when his close friend suffers a kind of nervous breakdown after becoming so attached to his troops that he can't conscience sending them into the kind of hell they need to face if their mission is going to be successful. Immediately, he runs into trouble from everyone. His hard-as-nails manner alienates everyone in his command except Dean Jagger, who plays a fellow officer. All of his pilots put in for transfers, and he has only a short time before he loses them all to convince them that his way is effective.

There are some spectacular aerial battle scenes, which are intercut with actual combat footage, making them more sobering than really exciting. Every time a plane is shot down, you can't help but remember that it was an actual crew of human beings, Germans or Americans, who lost their lives. What works best about the film is the interaction among the actors. Peck makes a good commander; his stoic exterior also shows the humanity inside, and the fact that he must send these men that he really admires and likes into almost certain death is visibly draining. The film asks important questions about the dehumanization of soldiers in war, something that you might not have encountered in an earlier film shot during the war itself.

The film was nominated for four Oscars including Best Picture and Best Actor (Peck). It took home Best Sound and a deserved Best Supporting Actor win for Dean Jagger as the faithful and practical conscience of the squad.

Michael W. Phillips, Jr.