All right, I'll admit it, this one makes me weepy every time I see it. Over-the-top MGM production values, first rate score, solid players and a literate script based on a thrilling true story and, voila', wartime cornpone at its best. The problems derive primarily from the cardboard characters, staunchly middle American archetypes generously contrasted against one-dimensional foreign stereotypes, the idealized missionary couple, the Chinese doctors, the Chinese civilians and guerrilla soldiers and the largely unseen Japanese. The facts of Doolittle's raid are well known, a daring, perhaps even foolhardy, attack on the Japanese homeland very, very soon after Pearl Harbor as a demonstration that they were, in fact, vulnerable and we could bring the fight to their shores. It is unlikely the bombing had any real effect on Japanese industrial capacity but at home, as a morale booster, it was a great success, the air crews and everyone associated with the raid rightfully hailed as heroes. But I suspect the real story is somewhat grittier than portrayed here. Van Johnson's Ted Lawson comes across as apple pie ala mode with nary a discouraging word, Spencer Tracy breezes through his unchallenging turn as Doolittle with little to do beyond stern and resolute and Robert Mitchum hits just the right note as a buddy pilot. Don DeFore supplies the comic relief which, of course earns him a painful fate on a China beach (he's lucky they didn't kill him off) and Robert Walker lards on the golly-gee-whiz. Phyllis Thaxter's performance as Ellen Lawson bears a warning: avert your eyes if you are susceptible to sugar diabetes. Rarely has the syrup run so thick. Still an enjoyable two and a half hours if you don't ask too much of it. Nary a shirker, nor a coward, nor a cynic to be found. If only war were this simple.
Review of Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
