IMDb RATING
6.1/10
2.3K
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The Japanese attack on Midway in June 1942, filmed as it happened.The Japanese attack on Midway in June 1942, filmed as it happened.The Japanese attack on Midway in June 1942, filmed as it happened.
- Won 1 Oscar
- 1 win total
Henry Fonda
- Narrator
- (voice)
Jane Darwell
- Narrator
- (voice)
James Roosevelt
- Self - US Army Major
- (as Major Roosevelt)
Donald Crisp
- Main Narrator
- (voice)
- (uncredited)
Irving Pichel
- Narrator
- (voice)
- (uncredited)
Jimmie Thach
- Self - Naval Aviator
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaDirector John Ford and cinematographer Joseph H. August were wounded by enemy fire while filming the battle.
- Quotes
Main Narrator: Midway Island. Not much land right enough, but it's our outpost. Your front yard.
- ConnectionsEdited into Ils ont filmé la guerre en couleur (2000)
- SoundtracksAmerica, My Country Tis of Thee
(1832) (uncredited)
Music by Lowell Mason, based on the Music by Henry Carey from "God Save the King" (1744)
Words by Samuel F. Smith
Played in the score and later sung by an offscreen chorus
Featured review
Celebrated WWII short from the great John Ford
John Ford's celebrated 19-minute documentary about America's first major victory of World War Two earned him a shrapnel wound, a Purple Heart and an Oscar. The first 10 is impressive without being that interesting - hard-won battle footage that largely consists of some stuff setting on fire, the camera shaking, the film cutting, then something else setting on fire - though the raising of the flag is a lovely moment, narrator Irving Pichel intoning: "Yes, this really happened". The second half is more obviously Fordian, the elegiac tone reinforced by hymns, slanting shadows and Jane Darwell's frenzied, corny, but effective narration. Audiences wept and fainted during the passage where she urges ambulance-men to rush injured soldiers to a hospital. Ford would make his definitive statement on the war, and the nature of heroism, with 1945's They Were Expendable, but this short is well worth a look.
helpful•33
- rick_7
- Mar 10, 2011
Details
- Runtime18 minutes
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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