Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo Information

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo is a 1944 MGM war film. It is based on the true story of the Doolittle Raid, America's first retaliatory air strike against Japan four months after the December 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Mervyn LeRoy directed Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo and Sam Zimbalist produced the film. The screenplay by Dalton Trumbo was based on the 1943 book of the same name, written by Captain Ted W. Lawson, a pilot who participated in the raid. In both the book and the film, Lawson gives an eyewitness account of the training, the mission, and the aftermath as experienced by his crew and others who flew the mission on April 18, 1942. Lawson piloted "The Ruptured Duck", the seventh of 16 B-25s to take off from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet.

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo stars Van Johnson as Lawson, Phyllis Thaxter as his wife Ellen, Robert Walker as Corporal David Thatcher, Robert Mitchum as Lieutenant Bob Gray and Spencer Tracy as Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle, the man who planned and led the raid. The film is noted for its accurate depiction of the historical details of the raid, as well as its use of actual wartime footage of the bombers in some flying scenes.

Plot

In February 1942, the United States Army Air Forces plan to retaliate for the Pearl Harbor attack by bombing Tokyo and four other Japanese cities. Lt.Col. James Doolittle (Spencer Tracy), the leader of the mission, assembles a volunteer force of aircrews, who begin their top-secret training by learning a new technique to make their North American B-25 Mitchell medium bombers airborne in the short distance of 500 feet or less, to simulate taking off from the deck of an aircraft carrier. After depicting the squadron's 10 weeks of hazardous training at Eglin Field, Florida and Naval Air Station Alameda, the story goes on to describe the raid and its aftermath.

While en route to Japan, the Hornets task force is discovered by a Japanese submarine, which has radioed their position. It is sunk, and the bombers are forced to take off 12 hours early at the extreme limit of their range. After their successful attack on Japan, all but one of the B-25s run out of fuel before reaching their recovery airfields in China. As a result, their crews are forced to either bail out over China or crash-land along the coast. Lawson's B-25 unexpectedly crashes in the surf while trying to land on a beach in darkness and heavy rain. He and his crew survive, badly injured, but then face more tremendous hardships and danger while being escorted to American lines by friendly Chinese. While he is en route, Lawson's injuries require the mission's flight surgeon to amputate one of his legs. The story ends with Lawson being reunited with his wife Ellen in a Washington, D.C., hospital.

Cast

As appearing in screen credits (main roles identified):

Van Johnson as Lt. Ted W. Lawson
Robert Walker as Cpl. David Thatcher
Tim Murdock as Lt. Dean Davenport
Scott McKay as Capt. David M. "Davey" Jones
Gordon McDonald as Lt. Bob Clever
Don DeFore as Lt. Charles McClure
Robert Mitchum as Lt. Bob Gray
John R. Reilly as Lt. Jacob "Shorty" Manch
Horace McNally as Lt. Thomas "Doc" White
Spencer Tracy as Lt. Col. James Doolittle
Phyllis Thaxter as Ellen Lawson
Donald Curtis as Lt. Randall
Louis Jean Heydt as Navy Lt. Henry Miller
William "Bill" Phillips as Lt. Don Smith
Douglas Cowan as Lt. Everett "Brick" Holstrom

Production

Verisimilitude was obtained by working closely with Captain Ted Lawson and other members of the raid. The use of Hurlburt Field and Peel Field near Pensacola, Florida and Eglin Field (the real base where the Doolittle Raiders trained), along with using operational USAAF B-25C and -D bombers (which closely resembled the B-25B Mitchells used in 1942) made for a very authentic, near-documentary feel. Auxiliary Field 4, Peel Field, was used for the short-distance take off practice scenes. Although an aircraft carrier was not available due to wartime needs (the USS Hornet itself had been sunk in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands 27 October 1942 only six months after launching the raid), a mix of realistic studio sets and original newsreel footage faithfully recreated the USS Hornet scenes. Principal photography took place between February and June 1944.

Reception

Recognized as an inspirational patriotic film with propagandistic values, The New York Times in 1944 summed up the universal verdict on the production, "our first sensational raid on Japan in April 1942 is told with magnificent integrity and dramatic eloquence ..." Variety focused on the human elements, "inspired casting ... the war becomes a highly personalized thing through the actions of these crew members."

Critical acclaim followed Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo and many reviewers considered it the finest aviation film of the period. The film is now considered a "classic aviation and war film." The actual Raiders considered it a worthy tribute.

Awards and honors

In the 1945 Academy Awards, the Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo team of A. Arnold Gillespie, Donald Jahraus and Warren Newcombe (photography) and Douglas Shearer (sound) won the Oscar for Best Special Effects. Robert Surtees, A.S.C. and Harold Rosson, A.S.C. were also nominated in the category of Black and White Cinematography.

American Film Institute lists:

AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies - Nominated
AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains:
- Lt. Colonel James H. Doolittle - Nominated Hero
AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers - Nominated

In popular culture

At a point in his career when he rarely made public appearances or commercials, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo star Van Johnson did a 1970s commercial for Post Fortified Oat Flakes breakfast cereal on a set reminiscent of B-25s on an aircraft carrier flight deck, concluding with the line that the cereal would "take me to Tokyo " and back!" Additionally, both Jefferson Airplane's second live album Thirty Seconds Over Winterland (1973) and experimental rock band Pere Ubu's 1975 debut single are named after the film. Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo was the inspiration for a memorable The Simpsons episode "Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo".