Wing and a Prayer (1944)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Henry Hathaway

Writers:

Jerome Cady (story)
Jerome Cady (screenplay)

Release Date:

24 July 1944 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama | War

Tagline:

MIGHTY DRAMA OF AIRCRAFT CARRIER X (original ad - all caps)

Plot:

An aircraft carrier is sent on a decoy mission around the Pacific, with orders to avoid combat, thus...

Plot Keywords:

Decoy | Aircraft Carrier | Navy | Oscar Statuette | Urban Legend Vector

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar.

Cast

Don Ameche	...	Flight Cmdr. Bingo Harper
Dana Andrews	...	Lt. Cmdr. Edward Moulton
William Eythe	...	Ensign Hallam 'Oscar' Scott
Charles Bickford	...	Capt. Waddell
Cedric Hardwicke	...	Admiral (as Sir Cedric Hardwicke)
Kevin O'Shea	...	Ens. Charles 'Cookie' Cunningham
Richard Jaeckel	...	Beezy Bessemer
Harry Morgan	...	Ensign Malcolm Brainard (as Henry Morgan)
Richard Crane	...	Ensign Gus Chisholm
Glenn Langan	...	Executive Officer
Renny McEvoy	...	Ens. Cliff Hale
Robert Bailey	...	Ens. Paducah Holloway
Reed Hadley	...	Cmdr. O'Donnell
George Mathews	...	Dooley
B.S. Pully	...	Flat Top

Also Known As:

Wing and a Prayer: The Story of Carrier X (USA) (long title)

Runtime:

97 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

USA:Approved | Netherlands:12 | Finland:S | Spain:13 | Sweden:15

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

When Gus Chisholm is strafed in the water, the various Japanese aircraft shown are American F4F Grumman "Wildcats" and American Douglas SBD "Dauntless" Divebombers

Goofs:

Factual errors: Curtiss SB2C Helldivers are shown in use alongside the Grumman TBF Avengers just prior to and during the Midway portions of the film. The Helldiver was not employed at Midway or prior to it.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Boston Legal: A Whiff and a Prayer (#2.4)" (2005)

Soundtrack:

I Know Why (and So Do You)

After the Purple

I'm intrigued by war movies, especially war movies within a country at war. This also happens to be my country, and in fact -- though I will never know the details -- my dad was in this action. This has the required swelling of patriotic fervor at the end, and does so with a minimum of racist demonization.

Its about the one really risky time in the war. There was never any doubt that the Germans (and Italians) would lose in Europe once the US entered the war; the only question was the cost. But in the Pacific, the situation was truly dire between Pearl Harbor and this battle. After this battle, it was a war of factories.

But before, it was touch and go. Everyone in the States would have known the pivotal role of the event and would have their stories about tactics and bravery.

There are three notable things about this movie.

The first is that it is nearly all wrong in terms of the history. The reason for this is that the US had broken the code (JN-25). This was not something that could be announced; the US knew the details of the Japanese plans and were able to stage an ambush. But that hardly explains the other, gratuitous historical inaccuracies. One can only think that no one cared what the actual tactics were as long as communal dedication was apparent.

A second rather shocking thing is that all the combat footage is genuine. These are real warriors in the real place, with less than half of the movie (obviously overlain) produced as a fiction. Looking at these men and operations deepens the experience, knowing how rare it is to see this before Vietnam.

But the most interesting to me is one character. He's pretty much the central character of the fiction: a torpedo plane pilot. Now picture this; you have a real story of national import around which history does swing. You have actual footage which in other, later, contexts with narration stands strong. You have all this and you want to insert Hollywood; what do you do?

Well, you insert a character who is a Hollywood actor, someone who has left Hollywood and enlisted but who still carries his Oscar on combat missions! Its yet another example of this phenomenon I call the narrative fold. Pretty cool.

Oh, the fictional parts are bad in nearly all respects, excepting one scene. An airman has been killed and his buddy is packing his effects for transport back to his girl. Going through things to place in a suitcase, he finds an empty tube of toothpaste and tosses it in the trash. Then he reconsiders -- a very poignant moment -- and pulls it out of the trash to send to the woman. Its one thing that works. All the rest would wait to be decoded.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.