By Rick Anderson
For Grays Harbor News Group
Some Harborites might remember “Twelve O’Clock High” as the film that provided Aberdeen native Robert Arthur with his highest-profile acting role.
Others might be more impressed with Gregory Peck’s stellar leading performance.
The movie’s lasting impact, however, might be as the first post-World War II film to provide a mature, authentic account of the effects of warfare on the combatants.
The 1949 war drama will be shown Saturday and Sunday as part of the 7th Street Theatre’s Silver Screen Classics series.
With the exception of one late action scene in which actual combat footage is used, the film is confined to a U.S. Army Air Corps base in England during the height of World War II.
An American bomber group that specializes in highly dangerous daylight attacks on German targets has acquired the reputation as a hard-luck outfit due to heavy casualties.
Peck plays the aptly named Gen. Frank Savage, the aide to the base’s commanding officer. He suspects the problem might lie with the unit’s popular leader, Col. Keith Davenport (played by Gary Merrill). Loyal to a fault, Davenport has become protective of his flyers and too willing to make excuses for their shortcomings — a trait Savage describes as “over-identification.”
Taking over the unit when Davenport is relieved of command, Savage subjects his flyers to an early form of tough love. After demoting air executive officer Ben Gately (Hugh Marlowe) and enforcing rigid disciplinary standards, he is confronted with a near-mutiny when the flyers demand transfers en masse.
Eventually Savage gets results in the form of improved performance and increased self-esteem among his troops. But then he begins to exhibit symptoms similar to those of Davenport’s.
Screenwriters Sy Bartlett and Beirne Lay Jr., who adapted their own novel, were themselves members of World War II bomber groups and based their story on actual incidents. Many Air Corps veterans cited “Twelve O’Clock High” as the only film of the era to accurately capture their experiences.
Cinema’s archetypal good guy, Peck might seem like an odd choice to play a tough-as-nails military officer. As it developed, it was inspired casting. Even during Savage’s grimmest moments, the audience can sense the compassion lying beneath the character’s icy exterior.
Although some film historians rate this performance above his Academy Award-winning turn as Atticus Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Peck lost the Oscar that year to Broderick Crawford (“All the King’s Men”).
Dean Jagger, however, did nab a Supporting Actor Oscar as Savage’s wily adjutant.
It’s not the type of flashy, scene-stealing portrayal generally associated with this award. But Jagger is subtly memorable as an erstwhile attorney who is a little smarter than the people around him.
The scene in which Jagger’s character manipulates the military bureaucracy to buy more time for Savage to win over his troops is a classic.
So is one in which Savage dresses down Gately before demoting him. Since his character is forbidden by military protocol to respond in kind to a superior officer, veteran actor Marlowe uses body language to convey his anger and embarrassment over the tongue-lashing.
The last surviving member of the main cast (he died in Aberdeen in 2008), Arthur holds his own in this fast company. He is very good in a smallish role as a callow company clerk whom Savage keeps busting and reinstating in rank.
Arthur, who performed in more than 30 Hollywood productions in the 1940s and ’50s before outgrowing his boy-next-door persona, perhaps surprisingly did not enjoy being reminded of this role. Returning to his hometown more than 50 years after this film, he grumbled in a Daily World interview, “You’d think that was the only movie I ever made.”
There are worse legacies, however, than to be associated with “Twelve O’Clock High.”
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“Twelve O’Clock High” is showing at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the 7th Street Theatre, 313 Seventh St., Hoquiam. Tickets are $6 each.
Rick Anderson, retired sports editor of The Daily World, now is a contributing columnist. Reach him at rickwrite48@gmail.com.
