Trade Talk #5

 

What Trades Told: Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo

“Hollywood’s still the same,” says Van Johnson from a mock-up cockpit circa seventies. “Call time, six in the morning,” he adds as if it were twenty-five years earlier with him back at MGM, where he’d become their most popular leading man, at least until the first team got out of uniform and back in front of cameras. Van spoofs his Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo self, latter which predated Post Fortified Oat Flakes the star now was selling. The ad ran near, if not concurrent, with an ABC special from 1972 called Hollywood --- The Dream Factory (cited previous, and often at Greenbriar). That primetime hour entranced for it introducing treasures off MGM’s Classic Era assembly line, a first see of sights so far out of reach in feature entirety. Capper was Van Johnson leading his bomber group over Tokyo to special effects accompany still dazzling decades after the fact, authentic enough to still be borrowed by filmmakers active in the seventies. If Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo was so remarkable as this in part, imagine its impact whole. The Doolittle raid took place April 18, 1942, a mission we’d call daring if not suicidal. Success was measured more by morale than damage done. In fact, Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle considered the whole thing a failure and was convinced he’d be court-martialed for bungling the job. In fact, he was promoted to Brigadier General and received the Medal of Honor. I understand from James Curtis’ Spencer Tracy biography that the actor hesitated to play Doolittle because all he’d do was brief crews, an all talk, no action part. Did Tracy observe what a canonical figure Doolittle had become? The association would do the actor nothing but good, Doolittle’s prestige and authority rubbing off on him as earlier had Father Flanagan. Tracy was famously reluctant to take any assignment, finding reasons to back out right up to start days. Popular as Van Johnson had become, it was Tracy who’d close attendance deal for Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, something MGM merchandisers understood even as he seemed less aware of that obvious fact.

For a mission wherein all aircraft were lost and only half of combatants got back, the Tokyo raid was unreservedly declared a winner in all aspects. The movie was based on memoirs by Ted W. Lawson, the flyer Van Johnson portrayed. The bombing was central and what everyone came to see. It was also anticlimactic for an hour left of story to tell how Johnson’s crew gets rescued out of China. We don’t see the Japanese but are assured they are closing in. Hollywood and military overseers were for toning down atrocity stuff as by this stage of war those in authority figured us for sure bet to win, certainly against Japan which by that time was on the ropes (Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo released November 1944). Speaking of rough play by the enemy, there was one that dealt that in spades to my adolescent sensibility, Fox’s The Purple Heart, being harrowing account of Doolittle crewmen captured and put on show trial for war crimes on Nippon soil. They are tortured (offscreen) and their cause seems hopeless, which indeed it was, eight of the actuals sentenced to die, three executed. Shook me up enough to cost sleep. Sure could have used three or four Ozu features for antidote, but what did I know of Ozu in 1969? Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo was long at 138 minutes but nobody squirmed. Rentals went skyward to $6.3 million worldwide and there was $1.4 million in profit. Here was a picture much of its time that sustains after fashion of Sergeant York and choice others of WWII by mainstream filmmakers. They had gung-ho jobs to do and did them, boundaries being the Code plus the U.S. Office of War Information, a censorship body not called that but every bit as controlling. Japan had assured us by word and hostile gestures that they were impregnable. No enemy could approach, let alone breach, their home islands. That seemed so for success they’d been having for opener months of the war. Americans needed to believe we could penetrate Japanese defenses, the Doolittle raid a necessary corrective to defeats more rule than exception in the conflict so far. Besides that, we wanted to get even for Pearl. This then was the first good strike we’d have at Japan, triumph at Midway achieved in part because so much of Japan’s defenses had to concentrate at home after what we did to Tokyo.

As majority of moviegoers were female during height of the war, it was essential for war-based features to address issues beyond violence characteristic of a genre long defined along such lines. Metro spread assurance among trades plus their own Lion’s Roar journal that Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo would address the private life of Capt. Lawson as essayed by Van Johnson, his wife and expectant mother played by Phyllis Thaxter. “He took off for Shangri-La,” said she and thousands of women who would wait, this then to be more than just another combat feature. An emotional finish harked back to The Big Parade, having been tested on that previous occasion, showed by a public’s acceptance to be effective, and so sure-fire for an encore in Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. To bolster child support came Margaret O’Brien endorsing Van Johnson on behalf of junior patrons, no base ignored by merchandisers. Should Metro have consulted this model when they produced and tried subsequent to sell Command Decision in late 1948 and into 1949? Latter lost money perhaps for overlooking crucial segments of their potential audience, a failure too late recognized to adjust. Block-long lines braved rain to see Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo at Broadway’s Capitol Theatre as reported by the Motion Picture Herald. The Capitol Theatre had an enormous clock outside that traffic was routed around, keeping not only time but a record of war bonds dispersed by the minute, cheering for totals plus for entertainers stationed beneath the timepiece as it recorded sales. Live bands and singers would pull shifts and exchange tickets to Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo for each war bond purchased. Such was street theatre to bally the Capitol’s show, the clock face emblazoned with the film’s title. The event tied patriotism to moviegoing for a civilian home front army not to be underestimated by the industry or the War Department.

It astonishes me that Washington went so relentlessly after Hollywood for trust violations after all movies had done toward overcoming Axis forces. The government let Hollywood off the hook for years leading up to war, knowing the while how much they’d need industry assist once hostilities commenced. Studios willingly submitted to government oversight if not overtake of procedure formerly the exclusive province of company employees. Disney’s shop was virtually occupied throughout the war, salve being government dollars poured into production of animated shorts to bolster the war effort. War-themed features even mentioning the conflict or service branches had to be vetted by the OWI, movies perhaps not altogether a propaganda arm of Allied interests, but darn close according to complaints (quietly) made. Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo would a decade later be the first of “Pre-48 Greats” from MGM to play television in Los Angeles and by most accounts got a record audience. Tokyo showed how certain old movies could mop up where star and subject coalesced to form an attractive viewing package. Greenbriar earlier (2012) visited L.A.’s MGM story and there is much emphasis on Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, including 1956 comments from the film’s producer Sam Zimbalist, who speculated on how well the film stood up after twelve years, a happy outcome he did not necessarily expect. Fascinating to read of attitudes re vintage tiles, how they’d wax and wane, even among creatives involved in their making. Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo plays TCM and streams at Amazon, Vudu/Fandango, others, in HD. No Blu-Ray as yet.