THE FIRST OF 12 - Flying Tigers (1943)

 

                “Flying Tigers” was John Wayne’s first war film. It was the first of 12.  As is well known, Wayne did not serve in the military in WWII.  This movie is part of the argument that he better served his country by making “flagwaving” films like this one.  Since it is unlikely that the uniformed Wayne would have killed as many Japanese in reality as compared to the celluloid hero, let’s concede the argument.  The fact that the movie was made in 1943 means that there were technical constraints on the effects and they impacted the script with the requisite propaganda themes.  The movie is meant to be a tribute to the American Volunteer Group (popularly known as the “Flying Tigers”) and leads off with a testimonial by Chiang Kai-shek.  The plot is basically the story of the leader of the unit (Wayne as Jim Gordon) and a hot shot jerk named Woody (John Carroll).  Gordon is the empathetic head pilot who takes in black sheep pilots to shoot down Japanese planes for the saintly (but hickish) Chinese people.  Woody is a wolf who makes no secret that he is in it just for the bounty money given for each kill.  He says “get out your checkbook, General” when he shoots down a Zero.  There is a love triangle involving a nurse named Brook (Anna Lee).  Woody wears out his charming roguishness when he contributes to the downing and subsequent strafing while parachuting death of the beloved exec “Hap” (Phil Kelly).  He does get a chance to redeem himself at the end and the love triangle conundrum is solved via subtraction.

                “Flying Tigers” was a big hit in a country that was craving Japanese ass-kicking.  People had heard of the famous unit already, but if they were hoping for a history lesson they were disappointed.  None of the characters were based on real people.  The only thing the movie gets right is the fact that the pilots were paid a bounty for each kill.  The biggest whopper is having the unit earning those bounties before Pearl Harbor.  In reality, the AVG did not go into action until after Pearl Harbor.  The other departure from reality is in the air combat depicted in the movie.  That can partly be blamed on the available technology.  The effects make heavy use of models (P-40 Warhawks) and footage (including Japanese newsreels to show the effects of bombings).  Although the movie was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Effects, it looks decidedly quaint.  There are three ways to go in dogfight movies:  the use of models, the use of actual planes to reenact, and the use of CGI.  The use of models can be pulled off if you are making “Star Wars”, but in this case it just looks like models.  Plus models pre-Star Wars often defy the realities of physics and look foolish doing so.  “Flying Tigers” also falls into the Old School of showing dogfights via cockpit shots and machine guns blazing.  Any plane shot at goes down and usually with the bullet ridden body of the pilot on board (unless you want to reenact the dastardly strafing of an American pilot early in the war).

                “Flying Tigers” is patriotic bull shit, but it is not painful to watch.  The acting is good.  Wayne is Wayne, as usual.  Carroll gets the meaty role and digs his teeth into it.  The character is not two-dimensional and although quite a cad, he has some redeeming qualities.  Anna Lee is lovely and can actually act a bit (usually not a requirement in movies like this).  The plot is very predictable, but what do you expect from a 1943 movie?  I could say the same for the dogfighting scenes, but they were done much better by movies pre-1940s

GRADE  =  C

The Mountain Road (1960)

 

 

            “The Mountain Road” is an odd little movie that bent over backward to be anti-war.  It marked Jimmy Stewart’s only WWII movie.  A veteran bomber pilot from WWII, Stewart avoided war roles, finding them unrealistic.  He would not have taken this role unless he was sure it would not glamorize war.  The movie was based on a novel by Theodore White.  White had been a correspondent in China in the war and was disillusioned by the corruption and incompetence of the Nationalist Chinese.  He interviewed OSS Major Frank Gleason, Jr. for the book.  Gleason served as an uncredited technical adviser.  Surprisingly, the movie had cooperation from the Pentagon.

            The movie is set in 1944.  Major Baldwin (Stewart) is in charge of blowing up an airfield as the Chinese forces retreat.  His orders call for him to take his demolition unit on the Mountain Road and do what he can to slow the pursuing Japanese.  He hooks up with Madame Su-Mei Hung (Lisa Lu in her film debut).  A romance develops, of course.  It’s going to be rocky because Baldwin is bitter and anti-Chinese.  At one point, he and his crew, who include Harry Morgan as his trusty sergeant, blow up a bridge, stranding many refugees on the other side.  War is hell!  Baldwin decides to make a side trip to destroy an ammo dump.  He doesn’t have to do this, but he knows Hollywood loves explosions.

            This is a strange movie.  It goes out of its way to avoid cliches.  Stewart plays an anti-hero before they became common later in the 60’s.  Baldwin does resemble some of Stewart’s flawed characters in his Westerns.   But those characters like in “The Naked Spur” and “Winchester ‘73” are still likeable.  Baldwin is not likeable.  He avoids the usual arc of gaining respect from his crew.  Conversely, he gets some of them killed.  His romance with Su-Mei is awkward and not believable, except for its final result.  In fact, one of the themes of the movie is power corrupts.  Oddly, another theme is not the corruption of the Chinese army.  Baldwin has no problems with a Chinese general who is with them.  And no problem with the Japanese.  They do not even appear in the movie.

            The movie is well-acted by a cast of familiar faces (if you are a baby boomer).  Stewart is great as a character that he liked to play after his WWII experience.  Unlike the war-avoider John Wayne, he was not afraid to play jerks.  And since the movie is basically a character study, we get a heavy dose of Baldwin.  And not a heavy dose of action.  The movie is bereft of suspense until a firefight at the end.  It’s a battle with bandits, not Japanese.  The movie hints at dysfunction in the unit, but drops it.

            “The Mountain Road” deserves its status as a forgotten movie.  But is it a forgotten gem?  Not really.  If you are a Jimmy Stewart fan (which I am), it certainly is a must-see.  This may be the first time you have heard of it.  It is not even in Stewart’s filmography on Wikipedia!   Although too out of the box to be effective, the film is a great tribute to Stewart the actor.  He was as gritty as Baldwin and willing to take chances with his career.  This movie did not make any waves at the box office, but I bet he was proud of it.

GRADE  =  B-

CONSENSUS #82. Empire of the Sun (1987)

SYNOPSIS:  When the International Settlement in Shanghai is occupied by the Japanese in 1941, spoiled rich kid Jamie Graham is separated from his parents.  He finds a surrogate father in the Fagin-like black marketeer Basie (John Malkovich).  When they are captured by the Japanese and placed in a camp, Jamie is torn between the part of the camp that has families in it and the part that is single white males run by the King Rat-like Basie.  Jamie treats his life as something of a bizarre summer camp.

BACK-STORY:  “Empire” was based on a biography by J.G. Ballard.  It was published in 1984.  Originally, Warner Brothers tapped Harold Becker to direct and when he dropped out, David Lean took over with Spielberg as producer.  Lean decided the source material was too much like a diary, so he turned directing over to Spielberg who was much more enamored with the book than he was.  Spielberg jumped at the chance because of his admiration for Lean’s films (especially “Bridge on the River Kwai” which it resembles).  Spielberg also loved WWII topics.  This was his third WWII movie after “1941” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark”.  It incorporated common Spielberg themes like separation of a child from his parents (Spielberg was deeply affected by his parents’ divorce when he was 14) and coming of age.  Loss of innocence is also a theme of the movie.  The movie was filmed at a studio in the United Kingdom and on location in Spain and Shanghai (the Chinese government allowed the first movie filming there since the 1940s).  5,000 Chinese extras were used.  The movie was not a box office success.

TRIVIA:  Wikipedia, imdb

1.  Three authentic P-51s were used.   They dropped plaster-filled mock 500 pound bombs in the movie.

2.  Spielberg’s father had been a radio operator on a B-25 Mitchell in the China-Burma Theater.

3.  Christian Bale was cast over 4,000 auditionees partly because author J.G. Ballard felt he resembled him at that age.  Bale was suggested by Amy Irving (Spielberg’s wife at that time) who had co-starred with him in “Anastasia:  The Mystery of Anna”.

4.  Academy   Award nominations for:  Art Direction, Cinematography, Editing, Original Music Score, Costume Design, and Sound.

5.   One of the Zeros (which were actually modified Harvard SJN trainers) was flown by Tom Danaher, a Marine night fighter pilot from WWII who shot down the last Japanese bomber in the war. 

6.  The scene where Jim is tucked in by his parents was modelled after the Norman Rockwell painting for FDR’s “Freedom from Fear”.  The painting is on the wall in the prison camp.

7.  Ballard appears as an extra in the party scene.

Belle and Blade  =  2.5

Brassey’s              =  4.0

Video Hound       =  3.8

War Movies         =  N/A

Military History  =  not on list

Channel 4             =  #43

Film Site                =  no

101 War Movies  =  yes

OPINION:  “Empire of the Sun” is a fine coming of age tale set in wartime.  It features a career-boosting performance by child actor Christian Bale and has an indelible performance by Malkovich.  It’s audience is not really war movie fans.  It is a typical Spielberg movie in that it does not dare to show the real horrors that the foreign civilians must have gone through.  This is not “Schindler’s List”.  On the other hand, it avoids some of the schmaltzy elements of most of Spielberg’s films.  It is not as good as the similar “Hope and Glory” and is overrated at #82.  I would not have it in the top 100.

Empire of the Sun (1987)

                “Empire” was based on a biography by J.G. Ballard.  It was published in 1984.  Originally, Warner Brothers tapped Harold Becker to direct and when he dropped out, David Lean took over with Spielberg as producer.  Lean decided the source material was too much like a diary, so he turned directing over to Spielberg who was much more enamored with the book than he was.  Spielberg jumped at the chance because of his admiration for Lean’s films (especially “Bridge on the River Kwai”, which it resembles).  Spielberg also loved WWII topics.  This was his third WWII movie after “1941” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark”.  The movie was filmed at a studio in the United Kingdom and on location in Spain and Shanghai (the Chinese government allowed the first movie filming there since the 1940s).  5,000 Chinese extras were used.  The movie was not a box office success. 

                The movie opens in 1941.  Foreigners are living safely in the International Settlement in Shanghai.  Their lives are fairly unchanged even though the Japanese army occupies the rest of the city.  Jamie Graham (Christian Bale) is a spoiled rich kid living in a mansion where he is waited on by Chinese servants.  His family lives a Rolls Royce life in a rickshaw city.  After Pearl Harbor, the Japanese decide to occupy the International Settlement.  This catches the naïve and clueless foreigners by surprise.  In the chaos of trying to escape the city, Jamie is separated from his parents.  He returns home to a well-deserved slap and lack of concern from his former servants.  When he runs out of food, he hooks up with a pair of grifters.  Basie (John Malkovich) dominates his partner Frank (Joe Pantoliano), but he takes a liking to Jamie.  He becomes a Fagin-like figure in Jamie’s life.  He continues to mentor Jamie after they are captured and put in an internment camp.  Jamie is torn between the part of the camp where the families live and the part where Basie and the other single males bunk.  Basie runs his barracks like a King Rat figure.  The camp is like a summer camp to the crafty Jamie.  It is especially enjoyable because it is adjacent to a Japanese fighter base.  Jamie is obsessed with air craft and finds a kindred spirit in a young Japanese pilot wannabe.

                “Empire” incorporates common Spielberg themes.  Jamie is separated from his parents and has to survive through his wits.  Jamie will have to come of age in the years covered by the movie.  (This theme is a bit diluted as the movie makes a massive three-year jump while he is in the camp.)  Another theme is loss of innocence.  This is punctuated by the atomic bombing of Nagasaki which also serves as a loss of innocence for humanity.  The movie does not explore the theme of “war is hell” much.  This is not “Schindler’s List”.  The Japanese are not demonized and the life in the camp is not hellacious.  This lack of realism is troubling.  I’m sure Spielberg would argue that the events are being seen from the wide-eyes of a child.  Thankfully, the themes are explored without the usual Spielbergian excesses.  It is not a schmaltzy movie, like “War Horse”, for instance.

                The movie is most watchable for the performance by Christian Bale.  It’s a star-making turn.  He gets the wild-eyed innocence right.  Jamie is not a cherub.  In fact, he’s something of a little privileged asshole until the shit hits the fan.  He then becomes a survivor, but he doesn’t lose his sense of adventure even as he matures into a mini-Basie.  Speaking of whom, Basie is a fascinating character.  Malkovich is perfect in the role.  He is not quite an anti-hero and the closest equivalent would be Corporal King from “King Rat”.  (This would make Jamie the equivalent of Marlowe.) 

                Is it one of the 100 best war movies ever made?  No.  It could have been if it had been more realistic.  The three-year jump is problematical because it shifts the movie from a tale of survival against all odds to one of a child’s evolution in adversity.  That is still an entertaining arc and Spielberg is great at that sort of plot.  Plus, the movie is a true story, so it deserves credit for not enhancing the tale too much.  It just seems like Spielberg has sugar-coated it too much.  It’s well worth the watch, however.

GRADE  =  B-