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Twelve O'Clock High Special Edition
In the heat of World War II, Hollywood's contribution to the war effort was to produce films that inspired pride, patriotism, duty, and a sense of inevitability in the American triumph. While there were notable exceptions to the formula (John Ford's They Were Expendable, made after the tide had turned in the war in the Pacific, portrayed the early years of the battle in uncompromisingly grim terms), it wasn't until the war was over that directors took a harder look at the toll that the battle took on American bodies, psyches, and souls.
Most of those films walked a mile in the shoes of enlisted servicemen to give audiences a grunt's-eye view of combat. Twelve O'Clock High was one of the first and arguably the greatest of the Hollywood films to examine the pressures of command and psychological toll of making life and death decisions for men they come know and care for. It was based on a novel by veteran screenwriter Sy Bartlett and Beirne Lay, Jr., who served in World War II under Air Force Brigadier General Frank Savage, the officer who directed the first U.S. precision daylight bombings on German industry in 1942. They witnessed firsthand the effects of fatigue and trauma as he sent fliers out on deadly mission after mission. Their novel, though a fictionalized account, was based upon their observations and inspired by their respect for the General.
The film opens with a middle-aged American in London (Dean Jagger) visiting a now overgrown landing strip in the English countryside, his memory drifting back to the war. The gentle, nostalgic tone of the prologue is broken by the chaos of that flashback: American bombers returning from a devastating mission. Base commander Colonel Keith Davenport (Gary Merrill) skitters out of his plane in a state of anxiety – not the portrait of calm military leadership we're used to seeing – and takes stock of injuries and losses of his men. "What to we do with his arm?" asks one man of another injured crewman, a horrifying line that communicates the violence of the ordeal without showing a onscreen single injury. "Our stinking luck," is Davenport's explanation for having the worst losses of the air groups. Brigadier General Frank Savage (Gregory Peck) sees a crisis in leadership – Davenport is too emotionally involved with his men to effectively command them as soldiers – that has spiraled into a crippling morale problem. Savage is sent to take over "the hard luck group" and he blows in like a hurricane, upending the base with disciplinary measures and tough talk to shake them out of their crippling funk. The revolt is immediate and overwhelming – every pilot puts in for an immediate transfer – but his Group Adjutant, Major Stovall (Dean Jagger), sees method where others see madness and slows the requests until Savage can win their respect through mission successes.
Gregory Peck was Zanuck's first choice to play Savage, but he had turned down earlier drafts of the script. Even when he finally signed on, he was nervous about playing a officer onscreen as he had not served in World War II – he had been classified 4-F due to a ruptured vertebrae. He need not have worried. Peck gives one of his most thoughtful and measured performances. In the words of director Henry King, "Greg Peck entered into this thing and he actually became the kind of general that General Kepner [the Air Force production liaison] was, one of those quiet determined men that go straight ahead and get the job finished." Peck, in turn, was impressed with King's enthusiasm and professionalism and continued the creative partnership through five further features, starting in 1950 with the superior adult western The Gunfighter. Peck delivers one of his most thoughtful performances as Savage and earned his fourth Oscar nomination, yet arguably his most effective scene is early in the film, during his final moment of calm before he storms onto the base. Stopping by a river, where the gentle burble is the flowing water is like soothing music, he lights a cigarette to calm his nerves and steel himself for the job to be done, and then steps back in and drives on. Savage is like an actor preparing for his entrance, and in a way that's exactly what he is. Only the audience and the stakes are different.
Dean Jagger took home a well deserved Oscar as Peck's thoughtful right hand man, a "retread" restricted to a desk job for this war who brings his civilian skills (he's a lawyer, he explains to Savage) in support of his client, which happens to be the United States Air Force. The supporting cast includes Hugh Marlowe and Gary Merrill, who both co-starred in All About Eve the next year, Paul Stewart (of Orson Welles' Mercury Theater Company) as the base doctor who asks for a definition of "maximum effort," and Millard Mitchell (best known as the Singin' In the Rain studio boss) as the Major General who begins to see the same cracks in Brigadier General Savage that broke his predecessor.
The production depended upon a cooperative relationship with the Air Force, if only for the physical demands of military planes and the airfield location, and military approval was not a sure thing for a drama that explored the chinks in the military armor. In fact, the film had champions in the military who were impressed with the film's seriousness and with Zanuck's vision, and agreed to help with only a few changes to the script. One of the changes is responsible for one of the most powerful scenes in the movie. Where the novel portrayed a nervous breakdown in a scene of hysterics, the Air Force requested a more subtle approach, suggesting in a memo: "He would be more likely to break down with… just plain fatigue." It becomes a riveting scene of stillness and tension and a striking portrait of the vulnerability of the human psyche under "maximum effort."
The production was shot predominantly as Elgin Field in Florida, which King scouted by air while piloting his own plane. Ozark Field in Alabama doubled for the scenes of the overgrown field of the prologue and epilogue. The air battles were cut together from authentic World War II combat footage from the Air Force archives, previously unseen by the public. The film was a critical hit and a commercial success and, to this day, military men hold Twelve O'Clock High in high esteem as one of the only films to accurately portray the experience of men in war and leaders under fire. The film is still used by both the military and by corporations to teach leadership and teambuilding skills.
The new two-disc "Cinema Classics Collection" edition of the film features a strong, sharp transfer with a few signs of age around the edges of some scenes. The exception is the combat footage, which is taken from Air Force archives and is understandably scruffy. Nick Redman plays host to the informative commentary track, which is largely dominated by film historian Rudy Behlmer (a familiar voice on many Warner discs), who fills the talk with production history and details. Jon Burlingame is on hand to comment on Alfred Newman's score (which is limited to the framing sequences – this is a rare Hollywood studio production that plays out without a traditional underscore) and Newman's relationship with studio head Darryl F. Zanuck. A more focused production history can be found in the 30 minute featurette "Memories of Twelve O'Clock High," an efficient documentary featuring Behlmer and other film and military historians. The same crew can be found commenting on the short featurettes "WWII and the American Home Front," "Inspiring a Character: General Frank A. Armstrong," and "The Pilots of the Eight Air Force," which together serve as a brief introduction to the historical background of the film. Also comes with an insert featuring brief production notes and an envelope with four postcard-size B&W stills.
In the heat of World War II, Hollywood's contribution to the war effort was to produce films that inspired pride, patriotism, duty, and a sense of inevitability in the American triumph. While there were notable exceptions to the formula (John Ford's They Were Expendable, made after the tide had turned in the war in the Pacific, portrayed the early years of the battle in uncompromisingly grim terms), it wasn't until the war was over that directors took a harder look at the toll that the battle took on American bodies, psyches, and souls.
Most of those films walked a mile in the shoes of enlisted servicemen to give audiences a grunt's-eye view of combat. Twelve O'Clock High was one of the first and arguably the greatest of the Hollywood films to examine the pressures of command and psychological toll of making life and death decisions for men they come know and care for. It was based on a novel by veteran screenwriter Sy Bartlett and Beirne Lay, Jr., who served in World War II under Air Force Brigadier General Frank Savage, the officer who directed the first U.S. precision daylight bombings on German industry in 1942. They witnessed firsthand the effects of fatigue and trauma as he sent fliers out on deadly mission after mission. Their novel, though a fictionalized account, was based upon their observations and inspired by their respect for the General.
The film opens with a middle-aged American in London (Dean Jagger) visiting a now overgrown landing strip in the English countryside, his memory drifting back to the war. The gentle, nostalgic tone of the prologue is broken by the chaos of that flashback: American bombers returning from a devastating mission. Base commander Colonel Keith Davenport (Gary Merrill) skitters out of his plane in a state of anxiety – not the portrait of calm military leadership we're used to seeing – and takes stock of injuries and losses of his men. "What to we do with his arm?" asks one man of another injured crewman, a horrifying line that communicates the violence of the ordeal without showing a onscreen single injury. "Our stinking luck," is Davenport's explanation for having the worst losses of the air groups. Brigadier General Frank Savage (Gregory Peck) sees a crisis in leadership – Davenport is too emotionally involved with his men to effectively command them as soldiers – that has spiraled into a crippling morale problem. Savage is sent to take over "the hard luck group" and he blows in like a hurricane, upending the base with disciplinary measures and tough talk to shake them out of their crippling funk. The revolt is immediate and overwhelming – every pilot puts in for an immediate transfer – but his Group Adjutant, Major Stovall (Dean Jagger), sees method where others see madness and slows the requests until Savage can win their respect through mission successes.
Gregory Peck was Zanuck's first choice to play Savage, but he had turned down earlier drafts of the script. Even when he finally signed on, he was nervous about playing a officer onscreen as he had not served in World War II – he had been classified 4-F due to a ruptured vertebrae. He need not have worried. Peck gives one of his most thoughtful and measured performances. In the words of director Henry King, "Greg Peck entered into this thing and he actually became the kind of general that General Kepner [the Air Force production liaison] was, one of those quiet determined men that go straight ahead and get the job finished." Peck, in turn, was impressed with King's enthusiasm and professionalism and continued the creative partnership through five further features, starting in 1950 with the superior adult western The Gunfighter. Peck delivers one of his most thoughtful performances as Savage and earned his fourth Oscar nomination, yet arguably his most effective scene is early in the film, during his final moment of calm before he storms onto the base. Stopping by a river, where the gentle burble is the flowing water is like soothing music, he lights a cigarette to calm his nerves and steel himself for the job to be done, and then steps back in and drives on. Savage is like an actor preparing for his entrance, and in a way that's exactly what he is. Only the audience and the stakes are different.
Dean Jagger took home a well deserved Oscar as Peck's thoughtful right hand man, a "retread" restricted to a desk job for this war who brings his civilian skills (he's a lawyer, he explains to Savage) in support of his client, which happens to be the United States Air Force. The supporting cast includes Hugh Marlowe and Gary Merrill, who both co-starred in All About Eve the next year, Paul Stewart (of Orson Welles' Mercury Theater Company) as the base doctor who asks for a definition of "maximum effort," and Millard Mitchell (best known as the Singin' In the Rain studio boss) as the Major General who begins to see the same cracks in Brigadier General Savage that broke his predecessor.
The production depended upon a cooperative relationship with the Air Force, if only for the physical demands of military planes and the airfield location, and military approval was not a sure thing for a drama that explored the chinks in the military armor. In fact, the film had champions in the military who were impressed with the film's seriousness and with Zanuck's vision, and agreed to help with only a few changes to the script. One of the changes is responsible for one of the most powerful scenes in the movie. Where the novel portrayed a nervous breakdown in a scene of hysterics, the Air Force requested a more subtle approach, suggesting in a memo: "He would be more likely to break down with… just plain fatigue." It becomes a riveting scene of stillness and tension and a striking portrait of the vulnerability of the human psyche under "maximum effort."
The production was shot predominantly as Elgin Field in Florida, which King scouted by air while piloting his own plane. Ozark Field in Alabama doubled for the scenes of the overgrown field of the prologue and epilogue. The air battles were cut together from authentic World War II combat footage from the Air Force archives, previously unseen by the public. The film was a critical hit and a commercial success and, to this day, military men hold Twelve O'Clock High in high esteem as one of the only films to accurately portray the experience of men in war and leaders under fire. The film is still used by both the military and by corporations to teach leadership and teambuilding skills.
The new two-disc "Cinema Classics Collection" edition of the film features a strong, sharp transfer with a few signs of age around the edges of some scenes. The exception is the combat footage, which is taken from Air Force archives and is understandably scruffy. Nick Redman plays host to the informative commentary track, which is largely dominated by film historian Rudy Behlmer (a familiar voice on many Warner discs), who fills the talk with production history and details. Jon Burlingame is on hand to comment on Alfred Newman's score (which is limited to the framing sequences – this is a rare Hollywood studio production that plays out without a traditional underscore) and Newman's relationship with studio head Darryl F. Zanuck. A more focused production history can be found in the 30 minute featurette "Memories of Twelve O'Clock High," an efficient documentary featuring Behlmer and other film and military historians. The same crew can be found commenting on the short featurettes "WWII and the American Home Front," "Inspiring a Character: General Frank A. Armstrong," and "The Pilots of the Eight Air Force," which together serve as a brief introduction to the historical background of the film. Also comes with an insert featuring brief production notes and an envelope with four postcard-size B&W stills.
