“The Tuskegee Airmen” was produced by HBO for $8.5 million, a record for a telemovie back then. It was directed by Robert Markowitz. He assembled a nice cast that included Laurence Fishburne, Courtney Vance, Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Andre Braugher. The film was well-received and won three Emmy Awards including for Outstanding Cast in a Miniseries or Special. Fishburne was nominated for Best Actor and Braugher for Best Supporting Actor. Apparently, it did not do a good enough job to prevent “Red Tails”.
The movie opens with the air combat trope of a boy dreaming of flying. That boy grows up to be Hannibal Lee (Fishburne) who leaves home to join the fledgling all-black 99th Pursuit Squadron. He goes through training with a typically heterogeneous small unit that includes a brash, ladies’ man nicknamed Train (Gooding), an overachieving pilot-already named Walter (Allen Payne), a Southerner who has lived with racism named Lewis (Mekhi Phifer), and the pipe-smoking art major named Cappy (Malcolm-Jamal Warner). Although the base commander is supportive of the “experiment”, they will be tormented by the openly racist Maj. Joy (Chris McDonald). He introduces himself by telling them their country is Africa. He uses the n-word. He is determined to sabotage the experiment. He is balanced by their black combat tactician Lt. Glenn (Vance). The training starts the whittling process. Not everyone will make it to duel with Nazi jets. A highlight is a visit from First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. She temporarily saves the program from the evil machinations of a Senator Conyers (lohn Lithgow). The squadron is shipped off to North Africa to prove him wrong.
“The Tuskegee Airmen” is best described as a sincere effort to commemorate the members of the 99th Pursuit Squadron. The unit was nicknamed the “Tuskegee Airmen” due to its training at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. The unit is also known as the “Red Tails” based on the red-painted tails of their P-51s. You know its sincere because the soundtrack soars when they fly. The acting is also sincere. Luckily, the African-Americans in the cast have every incentive to take their roles seriously. Those roles are all cliched, but this is 1990s HBO. It is amazing to note that just three years later, HBO came out with the iconoclastic “When Trumpets Fade”. The villains are also cliched, but more cringingly so. McDonald sports a pencil-thin mustache reserved in cinema for cads. You could swear the mustache is made of s*** based on his facial expressions. Lithgow goes full white hood-in-the-closet in his portrayal of Conyers. There are no grey areas in this movie.
For a movie that supposedly cost a lot for a made-for-TV movie, it definitely has a low budget feel to it. The air combat is not going to have you on the edge of your seat, partly because you will be chuckling at the cockpit banter. “Here’s a little something from Uncle Sam, you Nazi bastard.” The movie makes decent use of actual gun camera footage although it does not always match the action and is less than seamless. Some of the shots are from “The Battle of Britain” and “Memphis Belle”. The director had access to some P-51s, but not any of the other fighters the squadron flew. The movie is less about air combat and more about the treatment the unit went through. Three arcs summarize this theme: the training lowjinks of Joy, the political maneuverings of Conyers, and the respect-to-be-earned from the white bomber crews. Each is predictable, but satisfying, if trite.
“The Tuskegee Airmen” manages to accomplish its mission of being an entertaining summary of the history of the 99th Pursuit Squadron. It hits the highlights that you would read about in a short encyclopedia article, but it is more interested in the personal story of some of the men. Other than Benjamin Davis, Jr., the characters are all fictional. (Braugher does a great job as Davis, by the way.) They represent the various types of men who risked their lives overcoming racial barriers in the America and then had to start over again to earn respect in the European Theater. For those not familiar with the story, the movie accords them the respect they deserve from the historically challenged.
GRADE = B-
HISTORICAL ACCURACY: The movie has no clear time frame. It opens apparently in mid-1941 which would conform to the start of the “Tuskegee Experiment”. It does a good job of depicting the racist hurdles the men had to overcome, although it does not highlight the segregation they encountered even in training. The movie deftly includes a scene where German POWs are given better treatment than African-Americans. This type of thing did happen in the South. Black soldiers would be refused service at restaurants which would allow German POWs to be seated! Joy is a fictional character, but I would assume some of the white instructors were less than thrilled with their charges. I found no evidence that there was a Sen. Conyers or that the Armed Services Committee came close to pulling the plug. It would not surprise me, however. The movie includes Eleanor’s famous visit. In actuality, she was taken up by C. Alfred Anderson, the chief civilian instructor. He was the first African-American with a pilot’s license. The stunt was designed to signal White House support for the program. The 99th Pursuit Squadron was formed in September, 1941, but it was not shipped to North Africa until April, 1943. It was first assigned P-40s. It then went through P-39s and P-47s before acquiring the P-51s exclusively depicted in the movie. Its first mission was bombing the island of Pantelleria to support an amphibious invasion, so the movie exaggerates their only being used to attack trains. It was awarded the first of three Distinguished Unit Citation for Pantelleria. The 99th joined the other squadrons of the 332nd Fighter Group at Ramitelli Air Base in Italy in May, 1944. It changed from ground support to bomber escort as pointed out in the movie. The movie has Davis making a reference to the “sticking with the bombers” policy, but does not spell it out. Although Davis strictly enforced the policy to the detriment of air combat (no member reached ace status), the policy came down from Gen. Ira Eaker, commander of the 15th Air Force. Because of their strict adherence to the policy, the Red Tails earned a reputation among the bomber crews. Although the movie is a bit trite in using one bomber to represent this, it is essentially accurate. However, the claim that the unit never lost an escorted bomber has been proven to be a myth. They probably lost 25-27. This is still a remarkable record and compares favorably to the white fighter jocks who we can assume were less wedded to the policy. As far as the seemingly cinematic bullshit about sinking a destroyer, there is surprising truth to this. Except it was more of a torpedo boat and it was not sunk, it was put out of action. (The movie uses footage of a Japanese destroyer.) And it took eight fighters to pull this off. The mission alluded to at the end of the movie is true. The mission was a long one to Berlin and they did shoot down three jets.
Overall, I would give the movie a B for accuracy. It is a good tutorial and the fictionalized elements are used to advance the narrative and the theme.
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