Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)

An account of the “Doolittle Raid” in which the US bombed Tokyo and other Japanese cities, undertaken to raise US morale and damage Japanese morale instead of for the physical damage that could be done. We follow the crew of “The Ruptured Duck,” captained by Ted Lawson (Van Johnson) and including gunner David Thatcher (Robert Walker) and navigator Charles McClure (Don DeFore) as they go through special training with other airmen, including Bob Gray (Robert Mitchum), all under the command of Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle (Spencer Tracy), then as they attack Tokyo and attempt to survive.

This is a WWII propaganda piece, less of the “Why we fight” sort and mostly of the “Average Joes just like you” kind. There is a lot of time spent showing the crews doing average stuff (a lot of time). They play poker, sing songs, and smoke enough to give cancer to the entire state of Maine. The actual bombing mission takes only a few minutes of screen time, a fraction of what we spend being shown how these are regular folks.

It has a touch of the “We all love each other” propaganda here and there. The seamen say how much they respect the airmen and the airmen return the compliment. Our heroes announce that the Chinese are “our kind of people” and how they hope to come back and fight with them arm in arm. And there are lots of “Aw shucks” moments. This is the kind of picture where a solder says, “Gosh I’ll be glad when this war is over.” You need a better actor than Van Johnson to sell that line.

The relationship between Lawson and his wife is awkward and unnecessary and the training and “getting to know you” segment is way too long. The film doesn’t get going until the raid begins but then things become much more engaging. The attack itself is brief. The real story is after that, when the The Ruptured Duck is forced to ditch in the sea and the wounded fliers are aided by Chinese resistance fighters.

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo is a good movie that could be much better with trimming. At 138 minutes, it is too long; a half hour could have been chopped without effecting the story, which means it should have been chopped. But the Chinese section of this overlong cut makes it worth seeing.