Flat Top (1952)

not horrible nor great

Brilliant and touching

For having a relatively low budget, the film's style and overall art direction are immensely impressive.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

The opening credits and martial music seem rather grand to be bearing the infamous name of poverty row purveyors Monogram Pictures - now moving (for them) upmarket and soon to rebrand themselves Allied Artists - by whose standards this production by Walter Mirisch (who later gave us 'The Great Escape') obviously represented a prestige project. Those with a knowledge of US military aircraft will as usual have a great time pointing out all the mismatched aircraft footage (just as trainspotters never tire of pointing out that the rolling stock is all wrong in any film with a railway setting); but the 16mm Kodachrome film shot by enterprising wartime cameramen was already proving a gift that keeps on giving, of which this early production was an early beneficiary, aided by Cinecolor photography by Harry Neumann and art direction and editing by David Milton and William Austin that reasonably unobtrusively blends the original footage with studio work and scenes actually shot on the USS Princeton.The names of Sterling Hayden and Richard Carlson gave a strong hint as to what to expect, and sure enough we get the usual conflict between granite-faced by-the-book disciplinarian Hayden and nice guy Carlson who comes to appreciate the wisdom of Hayden's anti-charm offensive on the new boys (who include a youthful-looking William Schallart in a surprisingly substantial early role as 'Longfellow').The film holds your attention for the most part, although Marlin Skiles' music increasingly emphasises exhilaration rather than grim determination on the part of the flyers; and I did find my attention starting to wander during the final twenty minutes when the excitement was supposed to be at its height.

My pet peeve for most World War 2 movies (this one included) is the switching from one aircraft type to another in the same sequence, namely, a Corsair starts take-off and a Grumman Hellcat or Douglas Dauntless leaves the flight deck, or starting a dive-bomb attack with a Corsair and then showing a Hellcat completing the pass. There are many instances of this inconsistency in the film, but if you get past that it's OK. Also, Ensign Smith would probably not have been grounded for as long as it seemed he was (maybe a month), what with the need for pilots and the expense of his training. I know this was a plot move to make his return to the air at the end seem more dramatic, but it was a bit unrealistic.

This is a rather run-of-the-mill War movie on board an American flat top in the Pacific against the Japs. Definitely not in the class of "A wing and a prayer" or "Tora, Tora, Tora" and, without much background footage, even not up to the mediocre Midway. Education under fire with an as always impressing Sterling Hayden, not much else. Definitely a B-Movie under war movies issued during this area. Consumer commodity stuff not, if you want action, look at the above mentioned movies, if you want it along with history, choose Victory at Sea. Five out of Ten at best for the dogfight at the very end. Actually difficult to crunch out ten lines for this, isn't it.

I am into WW2 aircraft carriers and the Pacific War and I find this film to be a good one for its time. The editing is great and there is only a couple of war film segments that appear twice. Unlike Midway, they don't use modern carrier shots and even through it is not completely tied to a battle or campaign, every thing gets explained(In Midway, they didn't show the fact that the USS Yorktown CV5 sinks, or at least is supposed to sink). Over all, I'll give this film 3 1/2 stars out of five.