Twelve O'Clock High (1994, VHS)

TWELVE O'CLOCK HIGH is, on the surface, a war movie. It is a movie that was released in 1949 starring Gregory Peck, Dean Jagger, and Hugh Marlowe. But the heart of this movie isn't about war at all: it is a psychological study of leadership under pressure. It should be required viewing for any class teaching the fundamentals of leadership.

I love any movie that is about World War II involving airplanes. This movie is set in wartime England in 1942. Actually, the start of the movie is in 1949, after the war is over, but most of the action of the film takes place back in 1942, at an airfield where B-17 bombers take off and land. The movie has almost no women in it, which was a bummer, but the story of the men at war was great in what it revealed about what it takes to lead when men are sending men into battle to die.

At the beginning we meet the leader of the 21-plane squadron of B-17s, a man who loves his men and who takes care of them. There is just one problem: his men are being shot down at an alarming rate. The discerning eye sees that, ironically, it is the love and loyalty that the men have for each other that is the culprit. In the skies, in the heat of battle, pilots will leave the battle formation to fall back and help another plane which is in trouble. That may work with fighter planes in movies like TOP GUN, but in the bomber groups over Europe in World War II abandoning the whole team formation to help out one buddy's plane may have been heroic, but it exposed the rest of the battle group to the Luftwaffe's fighters, and the net effect was that more bombers were exposed and more got shot down because of the hole created in the defensive perimeter. An intelligent pilot stayed with the group and did his part for everyone. But love and loyalty were being valued over intelligence and common sense and men were dying. The squadron commander, with his boys-let's-take-care-of-each-other approach was unknowingly exposing his men to a greater danger by abandoning smart formation flying, and when his error is uncovered he is relieved of his command.

His close friend (played by Gregory Peck), General Savage, is sent to be the new commander. The new commander starts to reeducate the men from the beginning. He rules the squadron with an ironclad-tight sense of intelligence. He accepts that the men will probably hate him for it as he disciplines them. At first it looks like they will all, 100% of them, transfer out of the squadron and Savage will have failed. But as they begin to succeed as warriors, and as they gain their confidence, they begin to grudgingly respect him. Savage knows that his ice-cold style of leading the men in skillful formation flying rather than buddy-buddy flying is paying off.

But then a strange thing happens. As Peck's ice-water leadership style starts to pay off, inside himself he unconsciously begins to love his men and he wants to protect them just like the commander (who was relieved of duty for "over-identifying" with his troops) before him did. In turn their hate for him turns to respect and finally to love. But Peck's psychological problem is that his outer persona cannot handle the platonic love for his fellow warriors he feels inside. Split into two halves, the results become dangerous for him- and for others. I'll let you see what happens.

The movie is one of the best studies of leadership ever made and one of the best performances that Peck ever gave. The movie did win an Oscar for the supporting actor Dean Jagger, who plays a secretary to the bomber group. Dean did an outstanding job, but this movie is memorable primarily for the acting job Greg Peck did and for the work that those around him in the cast did as counterpoints to his central role.

The film uses footage in its battle scenes from the gun cameras of both the U.S. Army Air Force as well as gun camera footage from the German Luftwaffe. There ain't no CGI or models here; it's all real men flying and dying.

Another bonus to the film is that it is very balanced in the flagwaving department. Unlike many World War II films that came out right after the war, the U.S.A. is not portrayed as the master race which swatted the "wimpy krauts" or any of that sort of thing. Friends and enemies are largely shown on equal ground. One exception to this is a broadcast from a Nazi radio propagandist known as "Lord Ha-Ha" by the Allies but that is all very realistic in the context of the story.

A more recent film about B-17 combat in World War II was "Memphis Belle," a pretty decent movie in its own right. But again, while "Memphis Belle" and films like it really were about the flying crews in combat, TWELVE O'CLOCK HIGH is more interested in looking at leadership in the crucible of deadly pressure than merely looking at beautiful old airplanes or the buddy-factor in relationships between warriors. In that, it is a unique movie, and all the more great because it succeeds in making us compelled to watch what happens in the arena of leadership all the way through. Anyone who aspires to be a leader in anything will take home some good lessons from this movie.

I just wish there had been some women in it. But (sigh) I guess you can't have everything.

Five stars, straight up, twelve o'clock high.

*****