First B-25's in training for bombing mission over Japan, under General Jimmy Doolittle's command.
There is no more ringing title among World War II movies than Thirty Seconds over Tokyo, and the mission it celebrates was unquestionably historic: a 400-mile bombing raid to carry the war to Japan itself mere months after that nation's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Yet the film is less memorable than many WWII pictures with less exalted factual basis. At the time, critic James Agee eloquently defined both its virtues and limitations as "a big-studio, big-scale film, free of artistic pretension ... transformed by its not very imaginative but very dogged sincerity into something forceful, simple, and thoroughly sympathetic in spite of all its big-studio, big-scale habits." That remains true today, but perhaps the movie--and its unimpeachably noble, admirably life-sized characters--wouldn't seem so stuck in the amber of a bygone era if Mervyn LeRoy and company had pumped a little "artistic pretension" into it.
Spencer Tracy--as James H. Doolittle, architect of the raid--rates the most towering screen credit, and he's superb. But his role's an extended cameo; the emotional core of the film is B-25 pilot Ted Lawson (Van Johnson) and his wife, Ellen (the glowing Phyllis Thaxter). Lawson's bestselling memoir (with Bob Considine) of his training for the secret mission, his group's launching from the aircraft carrier Hornet, and his crash landing and protracted ordeal in China--where he lost a leg--has been faithfully served. The film is long on homely detail and all-American decency (including a remarkably outspoken regret over the unavoidability of civilian casualties) but achieves its greatest impact in the raid itself. That sequence, in addition to boasting Oscar-winning special effects, is mostly shot in riveting silence. --Richard T. Jameson
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
a look at history:
a good movie about w.w.II. if you like warbirds or stories of w.w.II and the efforts of people to servive this is a movie. it also shows a personal side of the main pilot , his crew and the men around him.
A Veteran's Day tribute to a great WWII actioner:
It seems relevant and important to say something about my favorite World War II film -- "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" -- on Veteran's Day. While I did not serve in the military, my dad fought in WW2 in the Pacific at Tarawa, one of the Marines' most heralded battles in history. Dad told me 6,000 men were killed in the four-day shootout for Tarawa, a little island in the Pacific we wanted for an air strip. Five thousand of those deaths, he told me, were Japanese. We buried the Americans in grave and dug... more info
A Classic World War II Film of a great Hero:
You cannot get better than Spencer Tracy as James Doolittle who lead the raid against Japan when America was in desperate straights for a shot back at the Empire of Japan. Tracy is so much better than Alec Baldwin who plays Doolittle with a smarminess. The greater onscreen time though goes to Van Johnson who is a B-25 pilot actually going on the raid. Launching from the Hornet, the raid was a smashing psychological attack against Japan. Shamed by their incompetence, Japanese Generals and Admirals had to... more info
Very accurate rendering of Lawson's book:
This movie on DVD follows remarkably well Ted Lawson's story as told in his book of the same title. For us older folks who remember World War II, there are excellent scenes of the twin engine B-25 in action. In real life Ted Lawson was injured far worse than shown in the movie, but Van Johnson captured the spirit of the man. The love scenes seem a little long for those who wanted to see more action with the airplanes and their crews. Robert Mitchum, who later became a big movie star, plays a rather small... more info
