Movies - Midway

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	Movies - Midway

Midway is a war film released in 1976. It was directed by Jack Smight. It starred Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, Glenn Ford, Hal Holbrook, Pat Morita and Toshiro Mifune.

Plot

The film chronicles two battles in the Pacific during World War II, the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway, which decided the war in the Pacific. The Japanese Imperial Navy had been undefeated until that time and out-numbered the American naval forces by four to one. Their chief strategist Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku (played by Mifune) creates a complicated battle plan in order to ambush the few remaining American aircraft carriers. Unknown to the Japanese, American military intelligence has broken the Japanese Naval encryption codes and know ahead of time that the ambush will take place at Midway Island. American Admiral Chester Nimitz (played by Fonda), places a gigantic bet by sending his last remaining carriers to Midway before the Japanese to set up his own ambush. The film accurately shows how intelligence, audacity, skill and luck won the day for the Americans. A sub-plot involves an American fighter pilot and his Nisei Japanese American girlfriend, whose family has been placed in internment during the war. As with many "carrier films" produced around this time, the US Navy's numerous Essex-class carriers played the parts of both American and Japanese flattops for shipboard scenes.

Trivia

The film was one of the few released with a "Sensurround" sound mix.

Authenticity of the combat footage

The U.S. carrier fighter-planes in the Battle of Midway and throughout 1942 were Grumman F4F "Wildcats", commonly identified by their distinct landing-gear configuration. There are numerous scenes of carrier landings in the movie and every single one depicts the Grumman F6F "Hellcat", distinguished by a different, more stable landing-gear configuration (fuselage and numerous other features are very similar to the appearance of the older F4F). The F6F was not available until 1943-45. According to Robert Osborne, the host of the "Turner Classic" TV movie channel, the film relied heavily on colored combat footage which is more likely to have been shot by the U.S. Navy after the battle (most probably between 1944 and 1945, when the F6F was the primary USN fighter in the Pacific theatre). One Wildcat shown to be involved in an accident with the aircraft carrier's island was actually shot during the Korean War. Computer-aided film colorizing was not available until the late 1980s (or early 1990s), thus authentic Battle of Midway combat footage (shot in Black-and-white) could not have been used in this 1976 historical action movie.

There is even a short scene showing a BF 109 shot down and falling into the sea (have to watch this scene in slow motion). The BF 109 (ME 109) was a German World War 2 fighter plane, and neither the Americans nor the Japanese had this plane at Midway; besides the BF 109 had a rather short range and would not be suited for this kind of action. Another strictly German warplane, the He-111 twin-engine bomber, may be seen very briefly before being consumed in a fireball as a stand-in meant to represent a Japanese or American plane. This is likely the result of using stock footage from another famous WWII movie, Battle of Britain
.

Ensign George H. Gay's (played by Kevin Dobson) plane was a two-passenger torpedo bomber plane which crashed into the ocean during one of the unsuccessful attacks on the Japanese fleet. The movie used footage of a single passenger fighter plane crashing into the ocean for this scene.

These gaffes and other compromises had to be made primarily due to various limitations, namely upon the technology available and the forced reliance on WWII color stock footage, which was both rare and absent from filming actual WWII events as they happened. As previously mentioned, stock footage from other films was used to help make up the difference namely from the aforementioned Battle of Britain and Tora! Tora! Tora!

Cast

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Movies - Midway

Plot

Trivia

Authenticity of the combat footage

Cast

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