Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo review
Check out David’s review of the 1944 movie, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) has been called the most accurate film portrayal of the Doolittle Raid on Japan during World War II. Made while the war was still raging, it was based on a best-selling memoir by one of the pilots, Col. Ted Lawson. Despite the film being a docudrama rather than a strict documentary, nothing was sensationalized or romanticized in portraying the mission. And a daring, harrowing mission it was—a long-range retaliatory air raid on some of the Japanese main islands on April 18, 1942, four months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Sixteen B-25 bombers were used in the raid—heavy aircraft that were required to take off from the short deck of an aircraft carrier, the USS Hornet, which involved considerable training beforehand. This training takes up the first part of the film.
The second part consists of a short period on the Navy carrier, the take off, and the raid itself—an exciting, suspenseful sequence that’s a triumph of taut filmmaking and amazing special effects. The final section of the film is about the aftermath of the raid, when some of the bombers came down in China. This is an equally dramatic and absorbing part of the story. Van Johnson plays Ted Lawson with just the right mix of youthful brashness and sincerity. Robert Walker is Dave Thatcher, the navigator of Lawson’s plane, the “Ruptured Duck.” Phyllis Thaxter plays Lawson’s wife, Ellen, and there’s a good role for an up-and-coming actor named Robert Mitchum. Spencer Tracy takes on a supporting role as the man in charge of the raid, Lt. Col. James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle. The screenplay is by Dalton Trumbo (Exodus, Spartacus); the direction, by Mervyn LeRoy (Random Harvest, Quo Vadis).
With a bit of honest sentiment and a lot of fascinating detail, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo really delivers the goods and keeps you interested for its full 138-minute running time. It’s a stirring and accurate document of a mission that boosted US morale in the early, dark days of the war.
