SimonJack "Wing and a Prayer" is one of the Hollywood films made about WW II during the war. It was unusual in that it was the first time the U.S. Navy allowed a civilian film crew to shoot aboard a vessel during wartime. Most of the good action stuff we see in war movies was shot by military cameramen and crews. The shipboard filming for the movie was done during the shakedown cruise of the new USS Yorktown carrier out of San Diego. It had been launched Jan. 21, 1943, at Newport News, VA, and was commissioned in April of that year. This was after the former Yorktown had been sunk on June 7, 1942, in the Battle of Midway.The best thing about this film to me is that it shows some of the work that the carrier crews had to do – not just the more thrilling jobs of the Navy pilots. And, it shows some of the insides and routine of the pilots as they prepare for missions. I enjoy this because I served in the Army during the Cold War years leading up to Vietnam, and I appreciate seeing and learning what service in the other branches was like. The studio mixed some real action film into the picture. This was stuff shot during the Battle of Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway. However, it's not nearly as impressive as the use of actual combat footage in later films about the war.The plot moves along rather slowly, and it follows an unnamed carrier, "Carrier X," on a fictitious mission in the South Pacific to fool the Japanese into thinking the U.S. fleet was scattered around the Pacific. That was so that Japan would be tricked into attacking Midway on the way to its final conquest of Hawaii. In reality, the U.S. had broken the Japanese code and knew that Japan planned attack at Midway and then go on to Hawaii.The acting in this film is so-so, with no standouts. I agree with another reviewer who found it a strange casting decision to have British actor Cedric Hardwicke play the unnamed admiral in this film. The character most likely was supposed to be the Chief of Naval Operations at the time whose manner and language was anything but like the proper, well-mannered English of Sir Hardwicke. Otherwise, the film is OK.The Yorktown was not one of the three American carriers in the Pacific when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. It had been in the Pacific after it was commission in 1937, but was moved to the Atlantic through the Panama Canal at the outbreak of WWII in Europe. She was in Norfolk, VA when Pearl Harbor was bombed, but she then sailed for San Diego and arrived there Dec. 30, 1941.The Battle of Coral Sea took place May 4-8, 1942, and the Battle of Midway was June 3-7, 1942. The new Yorktown (CV-10) joined the Pacific Fleet by mid-1943 for the duration of the war. It was decommission in 1975 and is now a museum ship and national historic landmark at Patriot's Point in South Carolina. On May 19, 1998, marine explorer Dr. Robert Ballard led a National Geographic research team that discovered the wreck of the Yorktown. It was more than three miles down on the ocean floor."Wing and a Prayer" was released in America after its July 28, 1944, premier in Providence RI. The 1970 movie, "Tora! Tora! Tora!" is a much more accurate, detailed and historic account of the Battle of Midway. It is done with excellent portrayals of the Japanese as well as American forces and units.

mark.waltz 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.

blanche-2 "Wing and a Prayer" is a decent WW II film made in 1944. It stars Don Ameche, Dana Andrews, William Eythe, Cedric Hardwicke, Charles Bickford, Harry Morgan, and Richard Jaeckel (so young it's unbelievable). It's directed by Henry Hathaway.The story concerns Naval decisions made during World War II before the Battle of Midway. It's not complete -- because of the time that it was made, info was still classified. We had broken the Japanese code and knew what was going to happen at Midway. This particular film is about a carrier, probably in real life, The Enterprise, that was supposed to make the Japanese think the Navy was spread all over the place so that they wouldn't anticipate the forces at Midway. When they were seeing carriers in different spots, they were in fact seeing only this carrier. The crew was told not under any circumstances to engage with the Japanese, which caused fatalities and problems when pilots could not defend themselves.The crew was in the dark, of course, and had no understanding of this policy, so they were angry and frustrated.Don Ameche plays a very stern flight commander, Bingo Harper, a man without a sense of humor, who seems detached from his men. Andrews plays lieutenant commander Edward Moulton, and William Eythe plays Hallam "Oscar" Scott, a film star who carries his Academy Award with him for luck.This is a 20th Century Fox film, and Andrews and Eythe were two actors who came up during World War II and were groomed by Fox to take over for its absent actors. Eythe bore a resemblance to Tyrone Power and was being groomed for stardom. The role he plays here is undoubtedly based on Power, who was indeed a movie star-pilot with an unusual first name. And he had kissed Betty Grable, just like Hallam. Unlike Dana Andrews, Eythe probably would never have made first ranks - he is rough around the edges, awkward physically, and he just didn't have star quality. He was given some excellent roles, but after Zanuck found out he was gay and pretty openly the lover of actor Lon McAllister, he got rid of him. Eythe found work in television and on the stage but died at the age of 38 of hepatitis.All in all, a pretty good movie, though the characters aren't very well developed, particularly Andrews' role. The minor characters have more back story.

Robert J. Maxwell This is a pretty rudimentary war flick, the story of Torpedo Squadron 5 aboard a US carrier after Pearl Harbor and during the battle of Midway. Nobody is more than one dimensional and everybody is predictable. The acting isn't bad, though, and the scenes of TBFs or TBMs landing and taking off are exciting to watch. These were big airplanes with 3-man crews and pretty cozy inside. George Bush flew one during the war and chose to do so because it gave him a chance to work aloft with a team instead of alone. Most of the combat footage is familiar from other movies but some is not. The real footage is pretty much a sloppy lash up as was usual at the time. Curtiss Helldivers are repeatedly shown although they weren't deployed at the time, nor were they an improvement over the dive bombers they replaced. Ditto for the Gruman Hellcats. There are some shots of F4F Wildcats, which DID participate at Midway, but they're used as stand-ins for Japanese Zeroes! As for the accuracy of the story itself, there were carrier strikes against Japanese bases after Pearl Harbor and before Midway, although they were more a matter of showing the flag than doing substantial damage. And at Midway, alas, American torpedo planes not only failed to damage the Japanese forces but were savaged by Japanese fighters and by AA. The dive bombers saved the day for us, aided by submarines, and all four Japanese carriers went down, along with all their airplanes and many of their most experienced pilots, while we lost the hastily repaired Yorktown. The chief reason for our success was our having broken the Japanese code, so we knew they were coming. The Japanese also canceled the attack on Midway even though there was a decent chance they could have succeeded without their carriers. They were to do something similar at Leyte Gulf two years later. If Halsey, who was given to issuing orders like "Attack -- repeat -- attack," had been in charge at Midway instead of the more cautious Spruance things might have turned out differently. But these sorts of twists, errors, and lack of subtleties were common in war movies at the time. It's a decent, watchable movie. It gives you a rather good feeling for what it was like to be a crew member of a TBF, where they were positioned with respect to one another -- that sort of thing. Its spirit is true to the times, so to speak.