Main Cast: Gary Cooper, Jane Wyatt, Wayne Morris, Walter Brennan, Julie London
Release Year: 1949
Country: US
Run Time: 116 minutes
Plot
In pageant-like fashion, Warner Bros.' Task Force traces the history of the American aircraft carrier, as experienced by a group of naval air aces. Gary Cooper plays Admiral Jonathan L. Scott, who on the verge of retirement remembers his struggle to win recognition of the importance of aircraft carriers. The story begins in 1921, when Scott and his friend Pete Richard (Walter Brennan) were making dangerous landings on the primitive 65-foot carrier Langley. Scott's outspokenness wins him few friends among the brass, and after he publicly insults a Japanese diplomat on the subject of his beloved carriers, he is shunted away to a desk job. Naturally, once Pearl Harbor is attacked, Scott is vindicated. While his wife Mary (Jane Wyatt) waits patiently at home, Scott serves in World War II with distinction, guiding his carrier through a maze of Japanese artillery and kamikazes. Filmed in Technicolor, Task Force makes good use of actual color battle footage filmed by the Signal Corps. A brief clip from Task Force shows up in the drive-in movie scene in James Cagney's White Heat (1949). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Overall, Task Force is only an average movie, but it's not average throughout. Instead, it's one of those films that has a number of highlights that can't quite compensate for the lesser aspects of the film. Chief among its assets is the final 20 or so minutes, when the use of archival battle footage is used to thrilling effect by writer/director Delmer Daves. The footage itself is impressive, but Daves knows that it has to be used properly, and he arranges it for maximum effectiveness. There are also some other very good moments scattered throughout, particularly those that deal with the technical aspects of carrier life; Daves breathes life into what could have been dull stretches here. He's not as successful when dealing with the actual story elements of Task Force, which generally come across as strained. The reluctance of those in command to see the importance of Cooper's "mission" may be fact-based, but it plays as pure Hollywood, and the romantic segments are terribly trite. This isn't meant to denigrate Jane Wyatt's contributions to the latter, which are quite commendable. But truth be told, there's more life and chemistry between Cooper and Walter Brennan than between Coop and Wyatt. AS a result, Task Force drags in too many places instead of soaring -- but when it does take off, it flies good and high. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Leo K. Kuter - Art Director, Leah Rhoads - Costume Designer, Delmer Daves - Director, Alan Crosland, Jr. - Editor, Franz Waxman - Composer (Music Score), Perc Westmore - Makeup, Robert Burks - Cinematographer, Wilfrid M. Cline - Cinematographer, Jerry Wald - Producer, George James Hopkins - Set Designer, Roy Davidson - Special Effects, Edwin DuPar - Special Effects, Charles Lang - Sound/Sound Designer, Delmer Daves - Screenwriter
Depicted as a 1917 graduate of the Naval Academy, Naval Aviator Jonathan L. "Scotty" Scott (Gary Cooper) spends 27 years, from 1921 to 1948, promoting naval aviation and the power of the aircraft carrier, during which time he antagonizes powerful people in the Navy and Congress, and marries the widow (Jane Wyatt) of a fellow flier who died in a crash during a carrier take-off aboard USS Langley (CV 1). Throughout, he has the help and friendship of his mentor and superior officer Pete Richard (Walter Brennan).
During the filming of Task Force Gary Cooper was almost seriously injured on two occasions. The first was on the USS Antietam during gunnery practice, when an unmanned target plane caught fire and passed over the deck before crashing in the ocean. The second incident occurred when a naval barge Cooper was riding broke up on the rocks at the edge of Long Beach Harbor during a thick fog. Cooper was quickly rescued, but was hospitalized with a high fever.[3]
Near the end, the film changes from black and white to Technicolor in order to unobtrusively use actual combat film shot in color.[4] Warner Bros. obtained Technicolor footage filmed during the war in the Pacific, including the Battle of Midway, the Japanese attack on USS Yorktown and a kamikaze attack on USS Franklin. The production also used original black and white footage of the USS Langley, one of the first American aircraft carriers, and the USS Saratoga.[2]
During the Battle of Midway scene, the "Japanese carrier" blowing up is actually HMS Barham being destroyed by German submarine U-331.
^ The change comes just after a scene showing a contentious meeting in Washington D.C. in which Brennan and Cooper argue with a senator who wants to stop building carriers. After some aerial shots of a task force at sea and a plane landing on a carrier, still in black and white, a shot of a sailor in combat gear silhouetted against the sky is in color, but filtered to make it sepia, a technique similar to that used on the transitional shot of Dorothy opening the door of her house to reveal Munchkinland in The Wizard of Oz. This is followed by of Cooper at night walking the deck of his first command, still in sepia, and airplanes taking off at night. The next shot, of a naval task force with air cover, is in full color.
