Command Decision
Starring: Gable, Johnson, PidgeonStudio: Warner Home Video
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Format: Black & White, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Running Time: 111 minutes
DVD Release: June 5th 2007
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DVD Review
World War II drama that shows the battles - on and off the field - that a general must fight in order to win the war. General Casey of the US Forces in England must fight congressional representatives and his own chain of command to be allowed to complete an important mission. He must get his men's planes out, during a small window of fair weather, in order to prevent the Germans from making more military jet planes. Although the general knows the success of his plan could decide whether the Germans get the upper hand in the war, it could also mean suicide for his men. Adapted from the William Wister Haines stage hit.
User Reviews
Clark Gable's 12 O'Clock High - Rating: 5/5
This is a really great film of the air war of World War II. Clark Gable is the commander who knows that to win the war, men will die. Someone has to give the orders. This film also shows how politics influences the course of war. This movie has a really stellar cast that included Walter Pidgeon, Van Johnson and Brian Donleavy. Many others too numerous to name are in this film also. Good action, taut drama and great cast deliver excellent entertainment
Long Lost Classic WW2 Movie..!! - Rating: 5/5
This movie stars Clark Gable and Walter Pidgeon as Air Force generals forced to send up bombers during daylight to bomb Germany. As casualties mount their tactics are questioned by Congress and the top brass in Washington. All through it all you realize the stress of combat is not only born by those flying the missions but the officers who send them. One of the best WW2 Air Force movies. Both Gable and Pidgeon give outstanding performances and convey what it really means to be a combat commander. Excellent..!!!
Not Really a War Movie - Rating: 4/5
In a larger sense "Command Decision" is not really a war movie but a film about the responsibility of command and leadership. It is one of the few films that effectively explores these topics; and belongs right up there with the original "Flight of the Phoenix" and "The Red Tent". Not having the visual power of those two films (the limited combat/action scenes are almost entirely stock footage), it must focus more narrowly on the human complications arising from the responsibility of command. The contradiction being that while a leader must cease to be human, no one who can do this is fit to be a leader.
Adapted from a stage play, "Command Decision" suffers from a fair amount of "long-windedness". Fortunately the most long-winded character (Major General Kane-played by Walter Pigeon), is well written and has many substantial things to convey. Much like his character in "Forbidden Planet", Pigeon is tasked with inserting historical and philosophical details into the story, and his commanding screen presence makes him ideal for this purpose.
Brigadier General K.C. Dennis (Clark Gable) has the most screen time and most challenging role, as his character is the guy stuck between a rock and a hard place. He is accountable for making the hard decisions that send his men off to die, but has a fragile authority dependent on how much independence his superiors are allowing him at a particular point in time. Gable does fine in this part, probably his best totally "serious" performance. Although the film takes pains to use the German high command to illustrate examples of bad leadership, it is easy to infer that the same mindset applies to the Allies. With many military leaders distorting events to cover their own ass and willing to sacrifice men for their own career advancement and personal ideology.
The premise of the film is the Air Corps discovery that the Germans have developed the first jet combat plane. Based on the real life Messerschmitt Me-262 (shown as a model in the film and in some archival footage), it is called the "Lantze-Wolf" here and considered so effective as a fighter aircraft that full production would allow the Luftwaffe to regain air supremacy over Europe.
The planes are being assembled in three cities deep in Germany. The only hope to delay their full production is "Operation Stitch" (named for its goal of gaining a stitch in time), a plan to attack these sites through dangerous daylight bombing raids. Dangerous because they will be heavily defended and because the bombers will have to go the final hundred miles without fighter escort-since the America fighters do not have the range to reach and return from the target. This type of daylight bombing was called precision bombing because the bomb-site was more effective with better visibility and a lower altitude. The alternative was safer but less accurate saturation bombing at night (insert Dresden here).
General Dennis must decide whether to start the operation, and then when the bombers take substantial punishment he must decide whether to continue in the expectation of additional high losses.
The film takes certain historical liberties as only after a postwar evaluation of the actual ME-262 did anyone really understand its strategic potential (in the hands of well trained pilots) as a fighter aircraft. Until the end Hitler insisted that it be utilized almost exclusively as a bomber. Although able to carry out this alternative role, its bomb load capacity was too little for any significant impact. That the ME-262 is more a footnote to the war than a major element was due more to Hitler's decision than to any allied efforts to limit its production.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
Please offer Command Decision in DVD. - Rating: 5/5
"Command Decision" is that rare WWII era studio offering that attempts to penetrate the fog of patriotism and expose the myth of the good war. While no one will deny the Nazi menace in Europe had to be destroyed to prevent a return of the dark ages, the day to day routine of the U.S. 8th Air Force's program of daylight bombing was as ruthless and cold blooded as any campaign fought then or now. "Maximum effort" and missed targets are not too subtle reminders that precision bombing was one of the great fictions of WWII. When an American commander, stoically played by Army Air Force veteran Clark Gable, attempts to destroy a German jet fighter program with a series of very dangerous bombing raids, the politics of winning the war take center stage. Based on the play by William Wister Haines, "Command Decision" comes as close as the times would allow to telling the behind the scenes story of America's air war over Europe. Directed by Sam Wood, MGM spared no expense in producing this 1948 classic with an all star cast and some of the best in-flight footage of B-17s this side of William Wyler's famous documentary, "The Memphis Belle." For those who flew the missions as well as those who love this film, please can we have "Command Decision" back and in DVD?
Gripping look ! - Rating: 5/5
The pressure , the unbearable tension in the middle of the war takes its place when a unscrupulous Officer goes far beyond the duty and the rules chasing the triumph no matter how expensive can be the result , in terms of warlike resources and human beings .
A permanent lesson for all those who are really interested in management policies and take of decisions ..
Gable in one of his best portraits !
