Flat Top

Flat Top is a run of the mill war film with an old plot device about a conflict between the group captain and the executive officer on how to command. But considering this came from Monogram Pictures which was transitioning to Allied Artists, for what product normally came from that studio this could have been Gone With The Wind.

Monogram even sprung for color and utilized some real combat footage from the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The stars are Sterling Hayden and Richard Carlson as the skipper and his number 2. It's the usual story, the tough new skipper and the executive officer who is loved by the men under him. Both these guys and the cast beneath fill their roles out well.

Giving as a high a rating as I do for a Monogram Picture believe me it's worth your while to give this one a look.

Stepping-Up from its Poverty Row Stature, Monogram (soon to be Allie Artists) Turns its Production into a Cinecolor (soon made obsolete by Eastman Color) Battle-Royal.

Actually the Lowly Anemia of Cinecolor makes the 16MM Real Navy Footage Blend Better and the Result is a Treat for Fans of Actual WWII War Film.

The Confrontations with Japan Zeros and the US Navy Pilots is Dynamic and Exciting.

Surprisingly the Low-Budget-Movie Editing (John Austin) was Nominated for an Academy Award.

Sterling Hayden and Richard Carlson are Perfectly Cast as Type.

Perhaps if Complaints are Forthcoming, the Mixing of Aircraft Type and other Technical Stuff will Annoy Nerds and for General Non-Wonky Movie Watchers...

There are way too many Unconvincing and Static Shots of Pilots Sitting in Studio Cockpits and Gawking.

Their Non-Battle Below-Deck Dramatics are Labored and Boring Cliches along with the Grounded Script that does Nothing to Elevate the Characters or Their Missions.

Overall, the Battles are Worth the Price of Admission and the Movie is Worth a Watch for War Movie, Aviation, and Military Fans.

The army and the air force had their go at this plot, so I suppose it was bound to be the navy's turn. Richard Carlson in the man expected to take over the squadron of fliers when their boss gets incapacitated, but instead of the mild-mannered "Joe", they get the hard as nails "Collier" (Sterling Hayden). He immediately sets the cat amongst the pigeons by grounding one of their popular but reckless number and by proceeding to rule the team with a rod of iron. Naturally, this earns him the enmity of his command but with their carrier about to head into danger against the heavily armed Japanese Imperial Fleet, we all know that discipline is going to be key (and that there is precisely no jeopardy at all with the rest of the plot!). Carlsen tries a little here, but Hayden is about as wooden as the deck of the USS Princeton upon which much of this was filmed. In the end, it's really all about some impressive aerial photography of training sessions and dogfights that is fairly clearly sourced from archive. It's feel-good wartime fayre but its mediocrity isn't much to write home about.

I am into WW2 aircraft carriers and the Pacific War and I find this film to be a good one for its time. The editing is great and there is only a couple of war film segments that appear twice. Unlike Midway, they don't use modern carrier shots and even through it is not completely tied to a battle or campaign, every thing gets explained(In Midway, they didn't show the fact that the USS Yorktown CV5 sinks, or at least is supposed to sink). Over all, I'll give this film 3 1/2 stars out of five.

ugly film--lots of degraded/fuzzy actual color stock footage. dropping torpedo?! Coursairs becoming Hellcats Hayden a bit one-dimensional and the men are rather mutinous! pretty much "Flying Leathernecks" Jack Larson

"Flat Top" is from a genre that few have heard of--crappy war films that are made up of HUGE chunks of stock footage. Rarely is the footage used well and in almost every case, the real footage is obvious because it's so grainy--and often a bit irrelevant. While I love a good airplane film, I hate most of these films because historical accuracy is unimportant--slapping together old clips into a semi-coherent movie to save a few bucks is all that matters. Can you tell that I was not a huge fan of this film?

As I said, the clips often are poorly done. In this film, it's better than many but as a guy who knows quite a bit about WWII aircraft, I was shocked to see what were supposed to be a Coursair fighter plane dropping a torpedo (this is like a guy giving birth--it just won't happen). Many times, instead of Coursairs, the film shows Hellcats--both excellent Navy fighter planes but they looked nothing alike. But when a Coursair suddenly becomes a Hellcat in mid-air (or vice-versa), it's just very sloppy. Also, and this is picky, I know, but they show post-WWII Coursairs as well (with the four screw propellers instead of three) as well as a Skyraider (DEFINITELY a post-WWII plane). And, as I pointed out above, the clips they used were in color but VERY fuzzy and often seemed like filler--and almost all the crashing into the deck shots have been used before repeatedly in other films!

As for the plot, it's VERY standard fare--and it pretty much "The Flying Leathernecks" and a bunch of other films all over again. You have a tough-as-nails commander (Sterling Hayden) and a second officer (Richard Carlson) who is more concerned about being pals with the men. Somehow these two completely incompatible approaches need to be reconciled. To make things worse, this isn't that interesting a film to plane and non-plane buffs.

Sloppy, derivative and not particularly good. Unless you are REALLY bored, you could do a lot better.