jacobs-greenwood
Directed by Richard Wallace, with writing credits for Martin Rackin (story) and John Twist (story and screenplay), this World War II propaganda film focuses on the technical role of the title job. It features an all star cast including: Pat O'Brien, Randolph Scott, Anne Shirley, Eddie Albert, Walter Reed, Robert Ryan, Barton MacLane, and Russell Wade, who played a similar role in The Bamboo Blonde (1946).The film begins with a monologue (by Brigadier-General Eugene L. Eubanks himself) emphasizing the importance of the bombardier, and the vision it took to create, train, and staff the job prior to World War II so that we were prepared to join the fight. Major Chick Davis (O'Brien), with his "golden goose" sighting equipment, challenges dive bomber Captain Buck Oliver (Scott) to see whose method will be most effective in the conflict, should the United States choose to enter the war. Though Buck misses the target, Chick hits it from 20,000 feet, convincing his critics to fund a training school (actually in Kirtland Field, Albuquerque) in New Mexico.The mythical site is reported to be an airfield owned by a former, and now deceased, dive bomber named Hughes, whose daughter Burton (Shirley) and son Tom (Albert) still work there. Gruff Chick arrives to find an environment too cozy for the Army Air Force, because of Burton's woman's touch, and has Sgt. Dixon (MacLane) rough it up a bit. Buck arrives to help, as one of the pilots for the bombardiers, and is greeted by Burton, who he evidently has been dating. Apparently Tom has enlisted as a bombardier too, based on the fact that his best friend, a star football player, Jim Carter (Reed) had joined.The film then spends quite a bit of time giving an overview of the education, which begins with extensive classroom and other ground training before the students are ever taken up in a plane. Besides Tom and Carter, some of the other recruits include Joe Connors (Ryan), Chito Rafferty (Richard Martin), and Paul Harris (Wade). Some of the pupils do better than others: Connors is distracted until we learn the reason - someone had been offering him money for one of the "golden goose" sighting apparatuses. Chick uses Connors to catch the culprits. Chick must also fight for his men to be treated with respect in the Army, e.g. to get commissions making them equal to their pilots. Scott's character Buck serves the function of the skeptical pilot trying to "steal" the best of Chick's recruits and as one who must be convinced of the bombardier's value.Shirley's character, as the lone credited female in the film, is not only a romantic interest for the competing Buck and Carter (and even to the smallest degree, Chick) but also serves to "soften up" the tough Chick a bit, acting as his sounding board, loyal employee, and voice of reason. Joan Barclay does appear, uncredited, as a romantic interest for Rafferty, however briefly. The most dramatic, and character revealing moments in the film, revolve around Arnold's character, who must justify why Chick and the Army board should keep him given his fear of jumping out of a disabled plane AND later is doomed to a tragic fate.The final phase of the film is the realization of all the extensive training, after it is learned that the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor.Though this film received an Academy Award nomination for Special Effects, they are vastly inferior to those in another film nominated film that same year, Air Force (1943).There is, of course, a moment late in the film when Buck sees the light and appreciates the role of the titled soldier. The film ends, oddly enough for the time, with its credits.
mark.waltz
This semi-documentary war drama is a face paced look at the lives of the pilots whose job it is to measure distance from the air to make sure the bombs they drop hit their targets. It even starts off like a documentary with no real credits (those are held off until the end) and explains in good detail of what these extremely brave men do, at great risk to their lives, but at even greater risk to their country if they didn't. The first half covers their training while the last part takes us on one of their missions, a dangerous one that has them falling right into the camp of the enemy. That sequence had me riveted to my television in total awe to the technical impressiveness of it all and the horror of these men's situation.But no matter how much their own lives are in peril, they get the goods on the enemy, never once giving into the tortures and utilizing a popular children's story in giving away American "secrets". The cast is superb, and includes Pat O'Brien (as the trainer), Anne Shirley (well utilized as the only major female character in a men's story), Robert Ryan, Randolph Scott (who gets a great final moment) and Eddie Albert as a trainee who meets a most horrifying destiny in the most shocking moment of the film. A rousing song of the Bombardiers is a light-hearted moment that is poignant and fun but never corny.
andrewsarchus
Basically a typical propaganda film for the last good war. But there were a couple things that struck me. First was the use of mouthed epithets. In two cases the Scott character mouths one, once at the beginning when he drops his bomb off target during the bomb-off ("dammit") and once when he is trying to sway a bombardier into being a pilot ("s*%t"). I could be wrong about the second instance but I replayed it several times and that's what it looks like to me. The third case is when the Anne Shirley character wishes the O'Brien character goodbye and good luck ("Give 'em hell") over the roar of the engines. She must have thought that was too unladylike because she clearly says "heck". I also found interesting the character that has moral problems with bombing, specifically bombing civilians. The avuncular superior officer assures him that only military targets will be hit due to the precision of the bombsight used. Given what we know about the LeMay's later strategy of firebombing Japanese cities into oblivion this scene plays with not a little irony. I remember McNamara's quoting of LeMay in "The Fog of War", something to the effect that if the US did not win the conflict he would be tried as a war criminal. The ending is way overwrought, in keeping with the movie. It reminded me a bit of the end of White Heat (I'm not comparing the films, just the ending!). Maybe it's just 'cause he gets blowed up. Blowed up real good!!!
dexter-10
There is no question as to who is in command of the training of cadets in this film: Major Chick Davis (Pat O'Brien). O'Brien plays an officer who adheres to military discipline in the creation of a new kind of soldier from his cadets--the bombardier. But he is not so rigid as to be unfair or unfriendly. In fact, he even changes his opinion as to the value of women working in the military. He's tough when he has to be, yet at other times he is a clear mix of coach and pastor, roles he perfected in other films. His character is the foundation of the action around which everything revolves. O'Brien seems natural in the role, and plays it in fine fashion. Two things help this movie: O'Brien's performance and the spectacular special effects ending.
