1944: Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (57th)

What else happened this year? War stuff. D-Day I guess? Right. Oh, America also had an election, in the middle of the war?? Cool.

What is the plot - in one sentence? We follow the training, action and aftermath of the Doolittle Raid on Japan in 1941, (it's based on a book by one of the real bombers.)

I don't have time, just spoil it for me? They bomb the shit out of the... uh... nips, are treated hospitably be the Republic of China where they crash land. The squad we follow most closely gets out of it and returns to America. In this crew, the lieutenant loses a leg, but he's allowed to keep flying, and his wife doesn't mind, because he's good looking, apparently.

What is the meaning of the title? Very true to the title, they're over Tokyo very briefly. They spend an enormous amount of time in China after the raid, as well as a lot of time training before they go. 

                 some pretty impressive model work from the bombing scene. Fair play there.

Anything that's not aged well? Does a woman get slapped around? No slapping around!! It's interesting that this was made so soon after the REAL doolittle bomb, and it's presumably for morale purposes to the US and its allies. While the term Nips and Japs are used a lot, I guess that makes sense for the times...Speaking of allies, the Republic of China is shown to be completely outgunned and out of basic supplies,  but doing their best. If this was made today, it would probably be financed by China, and it would probably have earnest communists killing Japanese soldiers with their bare hands and curing people with bogus medicines. Just like that movie Midway. Anyway, it's an interesting snapshot of the time.

Also, the main guy, the lieutenant, is played by Van Johnson, and his extraordinarily earnest wife keeps telling us that he's a good-looking fella, another sign of the time now, as he isn't what you'd call traditionally handsome. 

Also interesting is that so many seemingly able-bodied actors weren't out fighting. Robert Mitchum was in this, surely he'd be better off shooting guys in real life.

Any thoughts? Ok, the strike itself, and the shots of flying, are impressive and have aged amazingly. It's a shame that the actual raid is over so quickly, as we have to deal with the romance and training montages before, and the threat of capture afterwards. That's fair, but I would have liked some more flight stuff.

As this is based on a book, and the movie is based on a then still ongoing war, I wonder how real it is to the actual events, and how much has been propagandised (again, I understand why it would be). The navy and air force get along just famously in this, and I imagine that in real life they'd have a bit more of a rivalry.

Spencer Tracy, as Doolittle, each gives repeated chances and reasons for them to leave and not go through with the bombing, and I wonder how true to life that was too. 

Probably most amusingly, there's a brief scene of three wives of the pilots at the beach (all in full clothing, also) and two of them are already pregnant, and the other says that she's so bored she's going to volunteer at a munitions factory. That ought to solve that one for you love. The romance is to be expected, I suppose, but it's a bit of a drag, and makes the movie a little longer than it should be.

Would you recommend this? Yeah, it's overlong, but the effects remain impressive and it's a great indication of the time it was made in. I'll recommend it. 

Final thoughts? One of the pilots of a plane which we don't follow as closely is a young Robert Mitchum. Young Robert Mitchum looks exactly like Old Robert Mitchum, maybe the fact that he always looked in his 50s made him avoid having to fight and allowed him to film this movie instead. 

Another of the crews has a huge Virginian who is obsessed with Texas, and who talks in a baffling Jive talk. I was secretly glad to hear that he was captured, but in the end I misheard and he's fine. Pity.

Before the actual plan is told to the crews, not a single one of them guesses that they're going to bomb Japan.I imagine that in reality, they would have been more on the freakin' ball, they'd have had to be, surely?

Oh, one of our main crew has a camera and films a bit of the flying from the planes hold. I presume that this is a real thing that was added for attention to detail, but I kept thinking that it would come to something: a military policeman tells him he can't? He still films. He's filming during the flight over Japan? No consequences to the mission. I thought it was going to serve a greater purpose, or be a vital element in some arrest or mystery, but in the end NOTHING happens with it. Talk about a tease. 

Anyway, that's 57 done. The other 56 are right here, waiting for you when you get home, and don't you make this baby grow up without a father, Lieutenant.