Command Decision (1948)

Admirable film.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

I watched "Command Decision" last night on TCM. It's the first time I've seen this film in over twenty years...perhaps longer. What struck me throughout this movie is the script. Some have complained that "Command Decision" was "too much like a stage play". Yes, it was adapted on Broadway from the stage play adaptation of a novel. The Broadway production ran for a year. Nonetheless, this film's attraction is both good work by the cast of A list Hollywood actors and, equally, a well written script which was intelligent and believable. In at least two instances, there are lengthy monologues -- one by Walter Pidgeon and one by Clark Gable -- which were book ended by rapid fire questions, responses, or comments. The script is outstanding.

My uncle was a 19 year old bombardier in 1943 flying B-17s in the 8th AF. He was shot down over Kastle bombing the factory that made FW 190s. He was shot down on the 2nd bomb run over the target, the first was scrubbed because a smoke screen shrouded the target. The air commander ordered an abort and a 2nd go around. This was considered suicidal because now the AA gunners would have the planes zeroed in. My uncle was shot down on the 2nd run. It was his 24th mission. One more and he would have gone home.So this movie was very striking to me. Not just an old history film. A 'command decision' got my uncle shot down, but it was the right decision. They were there to win the war and that was how you did it.As a film, this movie is excellent, Gable is great and the rest of the cast is very good. The insertion of stock footage was smoothly done and kept the film from being a studio stage play. Altogether a good film worth watching.

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.

I found an old tape of Command Decision which I must have made 20 years ago. I concur with all those who have said that it is one of the best WW2 films ever made, but what struck me most forcefully was the fact that this highly intelligent, gripping and thoughtful film was made with a large crew of established filmstars by a completely commercial film studio. It brought home to me forcibly what was lost when the old studio system broke up and the sheer craftsmanship which it embodied was dispersed. The sheer childishness of most current films becomes even more evident.Writing as one who lived through the bombing of Britain, the historical perspective on the Allied wartime bombing campaign was fascinating. One small complaint--all film coverage of the American campaign in WW2 seems to focus on the Flying Fortress. Actually, most of the bombs were dropped by the Consolidated Liberator squadrons--less photogenic but more effective!