Page 48 - Star Wars Insider #181

CINEMATIC FORCES

Twelve

O’Clock

High

Director: Henry King
(20th century fox, 1945)

rom its title alone, Star Wars
promises epic battles in space,
F and in this regard, The Last
Jedi does not disappoint. The fi lm
opens with a thrilling dogfi ght of
Resistance X-wings and A-wings
01
against First Order TIE fi ghters.
Poe Dameron leads the charge
for the Resistance in Black One,
blasting all the turbolaser batteries Johnson’s research and Twelve O’Clock High. Group into a formidable fi ghting
on the First Order’s Dreadnaught. “I read a lot about World War II bombing force. Adapted by Sy Bartlett and
Seeing an opportunity to destroy runs,” Johnson said in an interview for Wired. Beirne Lay, Jr. from their own
the Dreadnaught entirely, Poe “How they worked and how [the bombers] novel, and directed by Henry Ring,
then disobeys General Organa’s were big, un-maneuverable beasts that the more Twelve O’Clock High differs from

command and calls in the bomber nimble fighters would have to protect… I also most other war films of the time
squad to make its run against the looked at a bunch of World War II movies. So, in that it depicts a realistic and
giant warship. The A-wings and Twelve O’Clock High was a big reference for me.” grim view of the war from the eyes
X-wings position themselves in a Set during the early days of America’s entry of the Army pilots and airmen.
protective formation around the into World War II, Twelve O’Clock High tells the These soldiers have become jaded
bombers, while Dameron fends story of Brigadier General Frank Savage, played from countless precision daylight
off TIE pursuers. The inspiration by Gregory Peck, and his ordeal to transform bombing raids on Nazi-held areas
for the sequence comes from both the undisciplined and war-weary 918th Bomb that took the lives of many of their
comrades. General Savage intends
to instill order and boost morale,
but at the end of the fi lm, suffers
a nervous breakdown of his own.
01 / The design

of the Resistance The film shows that the brutality
StarFortress of war can crush the mettle of even
bombers was
based on World the most disciplined of men.
War II Flying Apart from this grim message,
Fortresses.
what makes Twelve O’Clock
02 / Resistance High stand out nearly 70 years
fighters support later—and one of the reasons the
the bombing run.
Library of Congress selected it
for preservation—is the kinetic
bombing run that occurs toward
its climax. Cinematographer Leon
Shamroy filmed the actors in mock

cockpits and fuselages, and editor
Barbara McLean combined those
shots with documentary footage
of American and German planes
engaged in actual aerial combat
02
during the war. The fi lm opens

48 / STAR WARS INSIDER