Wing and a Prayer (1944)

Such a frustrating disappointment

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

good back-story, and good acting

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Combining actual battle footage with dramatic recreations, "Wing and a Prayer" starts months after Pearl Harbor with the question, "Where is the Navy, and why aren't they doing anything?" The answer is very simple---they weren't ready, and the Naval commander (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) admits this, along with the fact that Pearl Harbor took a bigger beating than the United States wanted to admit. It takes months for the ship commanded by Charles Bickford (and his assistants, Don Ameche and Dana Andrews) to see combat. They had brief contacts with the Japanese which caused a few casualties, as well as having several accidents that proved this ship was not ready to confront the enemy. When the big battle does occur, it is obvious that this ship needed extra time for training to confront Japan head on.Seriously looking at what was going on in the Pacific, the film is more than just gripping propaganda with an all-star cast. It is the view of what happens when men gather to fight. They don't just go out there with guns loaded or bombs ready. It takes a lot of strategy and an intelligent battle plan to fight for a common cause against evil. In addition to the three stars I already mentioned, such familiar faces as William Eythe and Henry (Harry) Morgan are featured. An amusing small part of the storyline involves a fictional character who carries an Oscar on the plane with him that is later revealed to be one of Betty Grable's partners in a magazine photo kiss. Grable, along with Alice Faye, appears in a brief clip from "Tin Pan Alley", used over a split scene between the sailors watching the film and the commanders discovering they are in enemy territory. The scene of the film breaking, being fixed, and then all of a sudden being called for duty is unforgettable in this message of priorities. There are plenty of moving scenes, yet not one speech of "why we fight" or "why we must win". The honesty of human error is explored and adds to the reality of the situation, making this one of the most prominent of all war movies made during that time.

If you want to see the actual story of the battle of Midway than definitely see the film that came out in the Seventies. If you can fast forward through the fictional plot involving Charlton Heston and his family problems you will see a very good documentary about the battle and how close run it was.Wing and a Prayer came out two years after and there were restrictions placed on the details, probably due to the fact that one of the reasons we won it was because we had broken the Japanese naval code. Still some of the restrictions were a bit ridiculous.Whose idea was it to cast Sir Cedric Hardwicke as an American Admiral, presumably the Chief of Naval Operations who gave us an overview of the film we were about to see in a prologue. The Chief of Naval Operations at that time was one Ernest J. King who was a rather profane man given to using universally understood words in his normal conversations. He must have had one good laugh at the very prim and proper Cedric Hardwicke playing him, in on a pass from the Royal Navy.The aircraft carrier where the story takes place is unnamed, but I think we can assume it's the Enterprise. In charge is Admiral Charles Bickford playing most probably Raymond Spruance who had tactical command of the task force at Midway.The plot of Wing and a Prayer centers around a conflict between Dana Andrews head of a torpedo squadron assigned to the carrier and Don Ameche, a stern by the book Naval commander in charge of the airplanes and their crews. Ameche and Andrews have conflicts similar to what Ameche had with Tyrone Power in films like In Old Chicago. If Power hadn't been in the Marines at the time serving in the real war in the Pacific, I'm sure he would have had Andrews's part.The usual wartime clichés and characters abound in Wing and a Prayer. One unusual part is that played by William Eythe, a Hollywood actor enlisted in the service and who's one of Andrews's pilots. This might have been Darryl F. Zanuck's idea of a tribute to his main star who as I said was actually serving.Wing and a Prayer is not a bad film, but with Midway out there it's just not the best film on the subject.

The movie is very interesting, and according to my own researches and familiarities ( since I am presently in my eighth decade ), one of the pleasures for me was NOT to see the time-worn scene of the bullet-riddled F4F "crashing" onto the deck and sliding into the command tower, as is shown in 9 out of 8 movies about WWII Navy pictures. Don Ameche does, if fact, do a very "military" version of the man-in-charge. Me Dear-departed mither into her ninth decade felt that Dana Andrews was the true Hollywoodie-Hero of all times. But what intrigues me MOST about the movie, since we have cruised through the islands of the tropical Pacific ( Figi, Samoa, American Samoa ), is that the film makers felt it necessary for the pilots, when retiring at night aboard ship, to wear PAJAMAS, and sleep under SHEETS and BLANKETS. WE did no such thing !!!

"Wing and a Prayer" really gives those of us not born yet a realistic idea of what life on a carrier was like going up against Japan in World War II. The tough decisions brought on by war were very poignant as were the losses of friends and shipmates in combat. The film was a bit murky at the end as to how the carrier (name?!) fit in with the Battle of Midway and the Japanese ship models were pretty cut-rate, even by 1940's standards. Using U.S. Navy Wildcat planes with white circles painted over their US star to represent Japanese planes was campy, but understandable since the US was in the process of really shooting all of the real zero's out of the sky during the time of the movie. Harry "MASH" Morgan was a 29 year old pilot hotshot that was nice to see him in his prime. Don Ameche did a very good job being a serious-as-death commander who had to be a hard *ss in order to send men into mortal combat. A great film!