Some 60 years after it was made, I've finally gotten to see this film. I'd read the Reader's Digest version of the book in junior high and totally enjoyed it.
Finding the film on YouTube, I sat down one night to see it. All the shenanigans I enjoyed in the book translated very well onto the film.
But the main thing that stood out to me was Gregory Peck's portrayal of a perceptive officer and a doctor. There were parallels between General Savage, the commander in "12 O'Clock High" and the good Captain Newman. Both were given the charge of an group of airmen and officers who didn't quite fit in to the challenge of an air war, and were given the task of picking up the pieces and re-building flyboys who would have to face getting killed in combat.
And then there was Tony Curtis as Jake Leibowitz, the self-appointed intern of Ward 7 who used his street smarts to complement Capt. Newman's training. Leibowitz's antics brought some light to an otherwise dark movie about airmen suffering from PTSD.
I like to think this movie set the stage for "M*A*S*H" which would follow nearly a decade later and set in the following war. The same formula of comedy and pathos that marked "Captain Newman MD" was present there as well, with the comedy again illuminating the madness of war.
Finding the film on YouTube, I sat down one night to see it. All the shenanigans I enjoyed in the book translated very well onto the film.
But the main thing that stood out to me was Gregory Peck's portrayal of a perceptive officer and a doctor. There were parallels between General Savage, the commander in "12 O'Clock High" and the good Captain Newman. Both were given the charge of an group of airmen and officers who didn't quite fit in to the challenge of an air war, and were given the task of picking up the pieces and re-building flyboys who would have to face getting killed in combat.
And then there was Tony Curtis as Jake Leibowitz, the self-appointed intern of Ward 7 who used his street smarts to complement Capt. Newman's training. Leibowitz's antics brought some light to an otherwise dark movie about airmen suffering from PTSD.
I like to think this movie set the stage for "M*A*S*H" which would follow nearly a decade later and set in the following war. The same formula of comedy and pathos that marked "Captain Newman MD" was present there as well, with the comedy again illuminating the madness of war.
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