Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Breakinger A Brilliant Conflict

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

sol It's early 1942 and the US Pacific Fleet is on the ropes with most of it's warships sunk and destroyed at Pearl Harbor after the devastating Japanese sneak attack on December 7, 1941. Now with the Japanese moving westward towards the Hawaiian islands and possibly California Washington and Oregon the US Navy under the command of British Admerial, how the hell did he get into the movie?, Cedric Hardwicke plans a strategy to lure the Japanese Pacific Fleet into a trap set for it at Midway Island.With one lone US aircraft carrier zig-zagging all throughout the South Pacific Admerial Hardwrick plans to confuse the Japs into thinking that the US Navy is on the run thus letting its guard down and head for Midway Island thinking that taking the island would would be nothing but a a cake walk. With the overconfident Japs not knowing that the entire US Pacific Fleet is waiting for it and ready to spring a bear, or shark, trap on it! The only problem is that the men of the carrier task force, especially the navy pilots, are to be kept in the dark about the operation making them feel,in avoiding contact with the enemy at all costs, like a bunch of gutless cowards!The flight commander of the carrier task force Cmdr. Bingo Harper,Don Ameche, knows what's going on in his orders to avoid contact with Japanese Navy but has a lot of trouble trying to get his pilots to follow his orders. The Navy fly-boys are itching for a chance to mix it with the Japs but are now almost on the brink of mutiny in them being kept at arms lengths even if their attacked by Jap Zero fighter in being ordered by Harper to turn tail and run. It takes a whole lot of patience and following orders by the head of the carrier flight crew Lt. Cmdr. Edward Moulton, Dana Andrews, to keep both his cool and sanity in having a number of his airmen shot down and killed by the Japanese Air Force without as much as fairing back at them! We also have in the movie Academy Award winning actor and now carrier fighter pilot Hallam "Oscar" Scott, William Eythe, ready to rough it with the Japs more then, what a jerk, being safely back in Hollywood making films with him kissing GI pin-up girls like actresses Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth! This is obviously to show the audience that even Hollywood, the land of make believe, is pulling its weight in the war by having top male stars like Clark Gable & Tyrone Power on he front lines risking their lives fighting Fascism!Finally after sailing around in circles for almost the entire film the carrier task force gave its pilots the order to go into action as the Japanese fleet was within sight of Midway island as the trap was strung on it! Lot of great action, mixed in with a number high emotional, scenes as the US Navy took it to the Japs and put an end to their dreams of conquering the entire Pacific; Up until or even past the US West Coast! As it turned out it was British Admiral, again how the hell did he ever get into the movie?, Hardwicke's brilliant plan to give the Japanese the false feeling on invincibility that lead to their disastrous defeat, losing almost all their combat aircraft carriers, at Midway which turned out to be the turning point in their grand and expansionist plans in the Pacific.

anily_gene Movie gives authentic view of TBM's, carrier torpedo bombers of mid-WWII. The tensions before the battle as well as the battle and aftermath are well covered. Acting is down-to-earth and realistic in terms of Combat Aircrew and Deck crews. More of a 'documentry' and memory bank for those who flew...and those who died! The USA won the battle AND the War. The TBM survived and saw service in the Korean War. A REAL FLAG WAVER!!!

dgraham61 The Movie was shot on the back lot of 20th Century Fox. The studio used sailors from NAS Longbeach Ca. as extras for about 2 weeks . In the Scene when a Bomb hits the Ship i am the first man on the fire hose . They had built part of a Carrier Deck over a lake and used SBD'S on this deck for close ups but then used film footage from actual battle scene's in between . This explains difference of planes and ships.

jparker-4 "The True Story of Carrier X". Not. A decent flick, but given that it was made in 1944, there are still some propaganda/intelligence considerations.It's interesting that we pick apart current movies (like Spiderman), yet leave these old films alone - when there are much more egregious errors to it. Pilots in TBFs taking off, when the planes that are launched are SBDs. Place #31 takes off, but it's plane #27 which crashes. The winning planes of Midway are torpedo planes instead of dive bombers.Despite these sort of issues, it does appear to capture the spirit of the carrier air groups of the war. Well worth seeing.My interest was to determine which carrier in fact was used for the film. Definitely an Essex class - the first of which was launched in '42. So it wasn't really at Midway. Looks like the USS Hornet CV-12 - which would be cute, the orignal USS Hornet (CV-8) was at Midway. But the hull number is not visible in the film.