July 10, 2024:
Ford's The Battle of Midway is so manipulative it's almost camp.
The moment of greatest drama — Pfc Billecheck raises the flag while Zeros strafe — and Ford has a chorus of grandmas sing a treacly "Star Spangled Banner". Wounded in an ambulance narrated by an overheated Jane Darwell in mid-Atlantic society accent: "Get those boys to the hospital. Please do, quickly. Get them to clean cots and cool sheets. Get them doctors and medicine, a nurse's soft hands. Get them to the hospital. Hurry, please." Overlooking the reality Michener later underscores: nurses require 24-hour armed security to keep them safe from rape.
Yet there are moments which catch me off guard. Surprisingly moving, perhaps largely as accidents of personal history. Half a second of Massie Hughes, another of Logan Ramsey, actual images of real men who in childhood were revered names because of Walter Lord's book. In color, living and breathing, serving their country in circumstances of great danger and very little hope.
Another: the PBY Catalina flying boats shown in several scenes were built in San Diego, likely by my grandmother, Rosie the Riveter, at Consolidated Aircraft, shortly to become Convair after merger with Vultee in 1943. All the early PBYs were from there. I take the trolley past those factory buildings at least twice a month.
The reality of all of this.
They were real people. I don't feel Ford does them proper service. Emmerich certainly does not.