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Save big on select all-time favorites on DVD and Blu-ray, including "Gone with the Wind," "The Goonies," and "Harry Potter." |
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Special Features
- Academy Award-nominated Pete Smith Specialty short "Movie Pests"
- Vintage Passing Parade short "A Lady Fights Back"
- Classic cartoon "Bear Raid Warden"
- Theatrical trailer
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Spencer Tracy--as James H. Doolittle, architect of the raid--rates the most towering screen credit, and he's superb. But his role's an extended cameo; the emotional core of the film is B-25 pilot Ted Lawson (Van Johnson) and his wife, Ellen (the glowing Phyllis Thaxter). Lawson's bestselling memoir (with Bob Considine) of his training for the secret mission, his group's launching from the aircraft carrier Hornet, and his crash landing and protracted ordeal in China--where he lost a leg--has been faithfully served. The film is long on homely detail and all-American decency (including a remarkably outspoken regret over the unavoidability of civilian casualties) but achieves its greatest impact in the raid itself. That sequence, in addition to boasting Oscar-winning special effects, is mostly shot in riveting silence. --Richard T. Jameson
Product Description
Customer Reviews
Van Johnson stars as Lieutenant Ted Lawson and he does a great job as the fighter pilot who is sometimes scared, confused and very human. The supporting cast includes Spencer Tracy as Doolittle, and Robert Mitchum, Don Defore, Robert Walker and a dozen other young actors whose names never did become household words. Phyllis Thaxter is cast as Van Johnson's young wife and the romance scenes they have together, complete with background violin music, are the only scenes I found a bit too overdone for modern tastes.
The rest of the film however, was full of action. I can well understand why it won an Academy Award for special effects because it put the audience right there on those little planes along with the men and used newsreel footage to supplement the scenes shot inside the planes. I really learned about the mission and the nature of the training, and felt the authenticity of a film that was actually made in 1944, not just a revisionist historian's interpretation. Here, the slang was real. They got the "dope" on what was going on, found out that everything was "swell" and the women were called "girls". Everyone smoked cigarettes too, a reality the recent politically correct "Pearl Harbor" seemed to ignore.
... Read more ›The strike itself was in fact designed primarily to raise morale of the homefront and US armed forces, who were taking a pounding in the first 6 months of the war in the Pacific. The success of the raid, made Doolittle-already famous as an air racer in the 30's- and the B25 household words.
This is ironic in the B25's case as it was accepted for production in the 1940-41 "50000 a year" aircraft expansion authorized by President Roosevelt. As a medium bomber it really had no doctrinal role in airpower as conceived by the AAC at the time; it was accepted because it was reasonably quick, had excellent range and was easy to fly. No small advantage, when the average age of the pilots who would take this aircraft into combat was 22.... The aircraft proved one of the most versatile of the war, especially after conversion into an attack aircraft with the bombardier comparment replaced with a solid-nose of guns and cannon. Doolittle basically chose the aircraft for the simple reason they were available (the upper echelon refused to release the B17/B24 "Strategic" Bombers for what may be a suicide mission) and had the range. Only after he saw what the AAC was willing to cough up did the idea for carrier transport come about-contrary to myth.... Read more ›
Like the book it's faithfully based on, the film is divided in 3 main parts :
1) the training for the raid or how to learn on land to get a heavy B-25 to take off from a carrier knowing you only have one chance to do it : the day of the mission,
2) the bombing raid itself involving 16 planes (if I remember right), and
3) the survival story : how to get back home after crashing in hostile territory : mainland China occupied by Japanese forces (knowing it was impossible to fly back to the carrier and that you couldn't probably have landed on it with a heavy plane like a B-25).
The movie focuses mostly one one crew, the one headed by captain Lawson.
It's interesting in many ways.
First, there's the historical aspect of this first US raid on Japan after Pearl Harbor. One purpose of it was to create a strong psychological impact on the Japanese who used to believe their territory was safe from such an attack (a parallel can be drawn here with what happened in New York on September 11, 2001). Another purpose was to boost the morale of Americans, both that of the civil population and of the military. This dual aim was fully reached.
Other main interesting aspects of the film - and the book - include : the training for the mission, the fact that you see the planes from the inside a great deal of the time, the relationships (between the airmen and their machines, between captain Lawson and his wife, between the pilots and their crews, between the army and the navy and between the Chinese and the Americans), another strong aspect being the struggle to survive.
... Read more ›
