War movies are so notoriously formulaic and predictable that one of the first real shocks in Thomas Pynchon's Crying of Lot 49 is when the World War II film that Oedipa Maas is watching doesn't turn out the way she expects. World War II movies in particular are unlikely to surprise or entertain us because we already know that the Allies are the good guys and the Nazis are the bad guys and that the Allies must prevail because they did prevail.

But we've seen so many bad films based on World War II precisely because a few excellent films were made on the subject, films that are endlessly imitated because they are so good. Twelve O'Clock High is such a film.

Twelve O'Clock High doesn't do any of the things that we've come to expect from war movies. We don't get our first explosion until more than an hour and a half into the movie. We see practically no gore--though the film begins with a man from a bomber crew describing a pretty gory situation on a plane. There is no evil German prisoner to say things that make us hate the enemy. There is no squirrely supply officer who conjures up a truckload of iodine and cigarettes to trade with the local villagers for whatever essentials some cagey officer will need in order to spoil the enemy's plans. And most importantly, this is less a story of military technology--of flak jackets and gas masks--than of soldiers.

After the Desert Storm operation, I remember the parade sponsored by the city of El Paso for the soldiers of Fort Bliss. Many of those who had returned from the fighting marched down the streets of El Paso to the cheers of the local citizenry--cheers that erupted into hysterics when a Patriot Missile was carried by on a float. My fellow Americans were more excited about the missiles that had been used in Iraq than they were about the men and women who had risked their lives there. Even the soldiers cheered the missile. We are a society obsessed with the technology of war. I suspect that part of what sets Twelve O'Clock High apart from the average war movie is that it concentrates less on how bombers work than on the decisions, the morale, and the team ethic of the pilots who fly them.

In order for the anxiety of the characters to be meaningful, director Henry King has to allow the script of Sy Bartlett to communicate how incredibly dangerous it is for bomber squadrons to fly over enemy targets at low altitudes in broad daylight. Bartlett rises to the task in the first fifteen minutes of the film--a piece of writing that does more to show the presence of fear in war through dialogue than we are likely to encounter in most blood-spattered closeups of men in trenches bursting into tears when the heads of their comrades are blown to bits.

The story begins with Colonel Davenport (Gary Merrill) "overidentifying with his men," according to Major General Frank Savage (Gregory Peck). Davenport has been losing bombers on one mission after another without doing very much damage to the enemy. He is sick about the mistakes that his men are making, but blames himself for not providing the leadership that they need to get the job done. General Savage, who is his friend as well as his superior, blames him as well. He blames him for having pushed himself beyond the limits of any individual man's endurance. For his own benefit and the benefit of the men serving under him, Davenport has to be relieved of command. And the only man capable of filling in for him is General Savage himself.

Despite his name, Savage is less a bloodthirsty brute than a rigid disciplinarian. He believes in discipline because he knows that the only way for men to count upon one another in combat is for them to know what to expect from one another. But even if discipline on their base and in the air is what the men need in order to survive, it is not what they want. In fact, it's something that they are all pretty sure they've had enough of.

Every member of every crew understands that his next mission could be his last. Understandably, they're less concerned with dressing according to regulations and with keeping their planes in formation than they are with keeping themselves as drunk as possible when they are on the ground.

The conflict, in other words, is not between the Americans and the Germans. The conflict is between a leadership style and the men who don't want that leadership. Gregory Peck's portrayal of a man whose solution is always to demand more of his men reaches its climax in the scene between General Savage and Lt. Col. Ben Gately (Hugh Marlowe), who has flown three missions with a fractured spine before collapsing from the pain. Savage knows that if daylight precision bombing is to succeed, it will be because of the dedication of men like Gately, men who somehow find the strength to respond to the call of duty as long as there is someone around to assure them that they have that strength. Savage knows he owes a tremendous debt of gratitude to Gately, but cannot allow himself to say anything more than, "Let us know if you need anything."

The unforgivingly demanding paradigm into which Savage has fallen has become the only thing he knows. He can lend his own strength to his men by demanding more and more of himself and of them. But he turns himself into something of a leadership machine. He becomes a piece of leadership technology by destroying whatever it is in himself that might want to express to Gately how much the pilot's sacrifices have meant to the rest of the men in the squadron.

His favorite tactic is to tell his men to be "men," by which he means that they should abandon their sensitivity to the needs of their bodies and their desire for psychic health. "Men," in Savage's view, express their masculinity to the extent that they abandon their humanity. They become machines with assigned tasks. If they say they need something to lean on, it is because they are acting like boys. They have to grow up and learn what it is to stand on their own feet because they are in "a real war, a shooting war," a war that they have to win because winning the war is the task that has been assigned to them.

As offensive as this soulless attitude might be in times of peace, we learn from Peck's supporting cast that it is precisely what the men in his squadron need. Major Harvey Stovall (Dean Jagger) is particularly quick to see how much the squadron members stand to gain by being treated like hardened heros. The covert ways in which he (the military bureaucrat) supports Savage (the man of action) constitute one of the more interesting subplots I have ever encountered in any action film.

You've probably seen too many bad war movies to believe me when I say this, but you're in for a real treat when you watch Twelve O'Clock High.


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*That's not exactly what Tolstoy says. But what he tries to demonstrate in War and Peace is the principle that one man's morale can make or break the morale of an entire army. Frank Savage is one man who sees his only challenge as the challenge of morale.

And now that I have you snooping around my footnote anyway, allow me to take this opportunity to direct you to a much better review of this film by Nick Peters:

http://www.epinions.com/content_14518881924

Nick likes the film a little more than I do (probably because he understands it better), but I want to thank him, in any case, for bringing my attention to it. If it hadn't been for his review, I would never have considered watching this film.



Recommended: Yes