Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 1949

The Contenders:

Broderick Crawford: All the King's Men (winner)
Kirk Douglas: Champion
Richard Todd: The Hasty Heart
John Wayne: Sands of Iwo Jima
Gregory Peck: Twelve O’Clock High

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1949

The Contenders:

All the King’s Men (winner)
Battleground
The Heiress
A Letter to Three Wives
Twelve O’Clock High

Bombs Away

Film: Twelve O’Clock High
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.

So the goofy post titles are back. Final results were 13 in favor, 3 against, and 3 who didn’t care.

I appear to be on a war film kick lately. I’m not sure what appealed to me about Twelve O’Clock High today, but since it was streaming I figured I’d give it a go. This is much more of a standard war movie than yesterday’s film. As someone who grew up watching military films, it was not unlike slipping into an old pair of comfortable shoes. This is World War II all the way and air combat all the way. I felt right at home.

At least for the first couple of minutes, that is. We learn right away that while Twelve O’Clock High isn’t going to show us a lot of graphic violence, it’s not going to pull its punches with regard to the men flying bomber missions over Europe. We start with a short framing story. A man unknown to us discovers an old mug in an antique shop and buys it. He then travels out to an open field that used to be a World War II airbase. This takes us into the past and we see a group of bombers returning from a mission. Any illusions we may have had that this will be straight propaganda are blown out right away. The bomber group has been hit hard.