Above and Beyond (1952)

 

                Beirne Lay, Jr. flew B-24’s out of Great Britain during WWII.  After the war, he became a writer.  Along with Sy Bartlett, he wrote the novel “Twelve O’Clock High”.  He went on to write the screenplay for the movie and others like “Strategic Air Command” and “The Gallant Hours”.  As his screenwriting career took off, he was still a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve.  One day, he suggested the idea for a movie about Paul Tibbetts to the commander of the Strategic Air Command, Curtis LeMay.  LeMay, who was concerned about the high rate of divorce among his personnel, saw the movie as a morale booster.  Lay prepared an outline and turned the project over to Melvin Frank and Norman Panama.  The duo wrote, produced, and directed movies.  They wrote the screenplay and it got full cooperation from SAC which provided an air base and technical advisers.  It was originally entitled “Eagle on His Cap”.  The movie was a hit and was nominated for Oscars for Best Original Story (Lay) and Best Score.  Star Robert Taylor had been a U.S. Navy Flight Instructor in WWII.  He did some of his best work in the movie and considered it one of his best roles.

                The opening of the film sets one of the themes as Lucy Tibbets (Eleanor Parker) is waiting and wondering about her husband.  It is obvious we will be treated to the stale cliché of the warrior having to choose between his profession and his spouse.  If you know war movies, you already know how this ends.  The movie flashes back to 1943 North Africa.  Tibbets is a scheduled to lead a bombing mission against Bizerte.  His superior insists on a dangerously low bomb drop and Tibbets refuses.  A general overhears the argument and on a hunch chooses Tibbets for a special mission that will be dangerous to his welfare and his marriage.  He won’t be seeing Lucy and his son much.  He placates her with perfume, but the scent won’t linger forever.  The mission is to help develop a new long-range heavy bomber called the B-29 Superfortress.  He then is tabbed to command the secret bombing unit that will drop the atomic bombs.  His security officer Maj. Uanna (James Whitmore) suggests the wives and families be allowed to live on the base.  Unfortunately for the male viewers, Lucy is included.  The intercutting between their lives now intersects for some tedious home scenes.  This being a 1950s movie, they sleep in separate beds and trips in between are interrupted by baby cries.  She gets increasingly bitchy about the “cloak and dagger” stuff.  The movie should have concentrated just on the mission and cut the soap opera bull shit.  But then it would not be a morale booster for overcoming marital problems.  The male scenes chronicle the steps leading up to and including the bombing of Hiroshima.

                “Above and Beyond” is not a biopic, but Tibbets dominates.  Or rather, Paul and Lucy dominate.  Their relationship is apparently accurate, but it certainly breaks no new ground for a war movie.  The romantic/dysfunction episodes bring the film down and it does not help that Parker is weak in a stereotypical role.  Taylor’s performance was acclaimed, but his Tibbets is unemotional.  While probably true to the man, it means the home scenes fall flat.  The movie makes a case for the pressures military marriages had to endure.  However, this focus means that you come away from the movie thinking Tibbets was a poor husband and father.  On the other hand, it does not make a case for him being the best pilot in the Army Air Force, which is what he was considered to be.  It also does not cover the development of the bomb. I would argue that would have been a wise substitute for the romance.  The Lucy and Paul arc also prevents any coverage of the personnel.  We don’t get to know the crew of the Enola Gay.  Shame.

                The movie is not overly patriotic.  It is not a commentary on the Cold War.  Parts of it feel like a docudrama about the Hiroshima bombing.  On that, it makes the case that civilians sometimes are acceptable collateral damage in war, but it does not debate the decision to drop the bomb.  It is more interested in a straight-forward history lesson.  That lesson is acceptably accurate.  (See below)  The movie does not enhance the narrative for entertainment purposes.  I feel like a hypocrite for saying this, but the movie could have used more dramatic license because it is boring in stretches.  The bombing mission pays off pretty well and sticks to the facts for the most part.  The footage was actually from the 1947 movie “The Beginning or the End” and it works as the explosion is impressive.  (This footage works better than the scene where Lucy learns the dangers of her husband’s job by witnessing footage of a B-17 crashing.  Shut up, aviation buffs!)

                “Above and Beyond” is a pre-“Patton” biopic.  It is much closer to Lays’ Halsey movie “The Gallant Hours”.  Tibbets may come off as a bad spouse, but the movie is not interested in delving into whether he was a war criminal.  It is just a standard war pic that does a good job covering Tibbet’s role in the Hiroshima bombing with a heavy dose of his marital life.  Guys might want to fast forward through those scenes.

GRADE  =  C

HISTORICAL ACCURACY:  The movie does not give much background on Tibbets’ career.  He was  originally stationed in Great  Britain as part of the 8^th Air Force.  He was already considered one of the best pilots.  He led the first bombing mission over France.  Tibbets was selected for the secret missions of flying Gen. Mark Clark and then Ike to Gibraltar.  His unit was then transferred to Jimmy Doolittle’s 12^th Air Force in North Africa.  After 18 missions there, he was appointed assistant for bomber operations under Col. Lauris Narstad (Brig. Gen. Roberts in the movie).  He did complain about the 6,000 foot altitude for the Bizerte mission, but unlike in the movie, he got his way and it was changed to 20,000.  His promotion was vetoed by Narstad, but it was because Narstad was jealous and felt Tibbets was moving in on his turf.  It was Doolittle who recommended him to head of the Army Air Force Gen. Hap Arnold.  Arnold was looking for someone to help develop the B-29. He was very successful at that and was the logical choice to head the secret 509^th Composite Group which would train to drop the bomb.  It was his decision to allow families to Wendover Air Base.  It did put pressure on his marriage as he had to lie to Lucy about the Manhattan Project.  He did call engineers “sanitation workers” when they had to do some work in his house.  I do not know if he refused to tell Lucy even the bare-bones of why he had to be so secretive.  The movie implies he was just doing what he had to do, but if Ike could tell reporters about plans and trust them to keep it a secret, it seems like Tibbets was overly secretive with his wife.  They divorced three years later, by the way.  As far as the mission is concerned, the movie is close enough.  Tibbets did have the name and image painted on the day before.  Hiroshima was chosen because of cloud cover over the primary target.  The mission was uneventful as shown.  Tibbets did make a hard turn after dropping.   However, he and his crew would not have had an above view of the explosion like the perspective in the movie.