Flat Top

As fiction, this is third rate. Sterling Hayden made his usual fairly flat performance, which suited the part of a Navy fighter squadron commander. His permanent scowl--or perhaps sneer--suited the role of the tough, battle-hardened flying ace trying to whip a new, untested squadron into an effective fighting force with tough love and good tactics. Richard Carlson, as his executive officer, was effective as the second-in-command who was too buddy buddy with the pilots, and thus often lost sight of the real mission: to kill Japs and win the war.

The plot is as old as fiction, and the movie is obviously low budget.

A great deal of the splendid photography came from the excellent World War II documentary film, "The Fighting Lady" (not to be confused with the Van Johnson fiction movie, "Men of the Fighting Lady"), which was filmed during actual combat on the Aircraft Carrier Enterprise--the original "Big E"--whose combat record was very impressive. The shots of carrier deck action, landings, wing camera shots of enemies being shot down and ground installations being bombarded and strafed were beautiful and dramatic, and recorded actual combat with real people being killed.

The movie would certainly rate five stars, were it simply based on the photography of the action. But...

But, the problems that made it a source of derision, for me at least, were the ludicrous consequences of trying to patch together a film composed of file footage from other sources. For example, a squadron is landing F4U Corsairs aboard the flattop, (reputedly the U.S.S. Princeton, although much of the footage was actually of the U.S.S. Enterprise, which I recognized) when one member of the very same squadron made a rough landing in an AD; an Korean War era aircraft which was not even in service during the 1944 period to which the movie reputedly referred.

Or, the squadron commander was flying along in his F4U, while clearly visible though the mock-up cockpit was his squadron--flying stock footage of F6F Grumman "Hellcats." Or when the squadron, which is referred to as the "Rosebuds" (the Navy used designations like VF-13, rather than names), is attacking a ground target in Corsairs, an excellent fighter with inverted gull wings, when suddenly, for no discernible reason, one or more of them are transformed by editing and splicing in the excellent documentary footage into an SB2C Curtis "Helldiver" dive bomber. Or when they are supposedly taking off in the pre-dawn darkness, the unmistakable flaps of an SBD Douglas "Dauntless" dive bomber are shown belching exhaust on takeoff.

Other faults abound: Navy pilots bunking in tiers of bunks in a large room, rather than two or three man staterooms, or ready rooms always shown bathed in red light, even when night flying was not the next action (red light was used to protect night vision.)

The movie was ruined for me, so far as the story was concerned, by such faux pas. It is almost as bad as the stock Pearl Harbor attack photos which replay over and over, in which the supposed Japanese attackers are shown flying the revered SBD Dauntlesses. Whoever made the first sequence of that footage should be shot for that particular mis-characterization of a famous old airplane.

But the movie is worth the price for the photography alone. Forget the story, or laugh derisively along with me.

Joe Pierre, USN (Ret)