Men of the Fighting Lady

If you don't mind mid-fifties melodrama, there's a whole lot of good action, suspense, and some nice, patriotic touches in Men of the Fighting Lady, an 80 minute long recruitment poster for being a fighter-bomber pilot, especially in an unpopular war. There's actually so much as-realistic-as-you-can-get-for-1954 action in the movie that the human element almost trips up the gun-camera footage of things being strafed and napalmed.

Yet, even if you find the talk-talk irritating (I didn't because it rang true), you can't dismiss the home movie sent to the air group on the carrier for Christmas or the blinded Panther pilot fumbling with a morphine syringe, trying to drive back the pain of his injuries so he can listen to his wingman talk him down.

I'd tune in the next time Turner Classic Movies shows Men of the Fighting Lady, and even if you don't believe in the Iraq War, you'll really get a taste of the flesh and blood reality of being a carrier pilot, dropping ordnance on things that don't seem particularly important to blow up.

Author James A. Michener visits the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany during the Korean War. He is tasked to write the crew's Christmas story. He is brought to flight surgeon Kent Dowling who recounts the story.

Released a year after the war, this is adapted from a magazine story by Michener. The use of the real thing and some real footage helps heighten the intensity. Seeing the real thing is fascinating even all these years later. Seeing the real bombing runs must have been compelling back in the day. I do remember the plane explosive crash on the carrier deck from somewhere else. I wonder if this is where it came from. Otherwise, the story is simple and the characters don't really stand out. These are good character actors and they do a solid job. As for the climatic story, it's just not that dramatic. The drama is concentrated on the landing and it's not that in doubt.

The real stars of this movie are the beautiful Grumman F9F Panther jets that we get to see launching from and landing on the carrier. The plot is mildly interesting, but nothing special. It is based on a story written by James Michener for the Saturday Evening Post. "The Bridges At Toko Ri" which was released the following year starring William Holden, Grace Kelly and Mickey Rooney is a more compelling story of carrier jet pilots in Korea, but Men of the Fighting Lady has better footage of the planes themselves. This movie does help you appreciate the very real dangers faced by pilots landing jets on pitching carrier decks. As the admiral in The Bridges at Toko Ri put it, "Where do we get such men?"

One look at the opening of this movie lets you know thta is not the work of MGM boss Louis B Mayer but his replacement Dore Schary whose job was to cut costs and make profits which MGM had stopped doing, leading in grosses but last in profits. Schary brought his penchant for reality with him starting with Battleground and once more here again. The star of the first is the star of the latter and by that I mean Van Johnson. This movie is about the Korean war which in the movie is referred to as a police action because an official war was never declared. True story taken from the Saturday Evening Post tells the tale of bomber planes on a Naval tanker during the war. It is very matter of fact with little plot but the lives of the men and their difficulty destroying a rail track that just seems to get rebuilt every time. Walter Pidgeon provides good support as the commander and everyone else is just fine and a thirty minute rescue scene is so impressive, it makes you wonder if this people had not been watching the Europen movies; the droll delivery, the spacial pacing, the voice over that is a third character, the actual footage of attacks because any attack or firing is actual footage. Fine movie all around that needs to be seen by more.

MEN OF THE FIGHTING LADY is a very unglamorous, but very gritty Korean War aircraft carrier picture whose centerpiece--the episode of a jet fighter pilot blinded by gunfire and "talked" back to a safe landing--is a true account from a story by Harry A. Burns titled "The Case of the Blind Pilot." The secondary script source for the story line is author James Michener (TALES OF THE SOUTH SEAS, HAWAII, THE SOURCE) who is actually portrayed in the film by Louis Calhern.

The lives of jet fighter pilots aboard the Fighting Lady in the Sea of Japan and their treacherous missions to destroy key North Korean military installations serve as the exposition for this slice-of-life, often neglected chapter in American war history. The mood and atmosphere of the film contain an unmistakable Korean War grimness that clouds over the men from beginning to end as they cut through the harsh North Korean skies battling ceaseless anti-aircraft fire in mission after mission.

MEN OF THE FIGHTING LADY is unromantic and raw. It's theme is the harsh, day-to-day experience of jet pilots who flew their missions under the gloom of being shot out of the air. For it is well worth remembering that unlike Viet Nam and subsequent Iraq wars, Korean War bombing missions exposed pilots to blistering anti-aircraft fire and attacking enemy aircraft resulting in numerous pilot casualties and downed planes. Not to be forgotten is that the Korean War was the first, full-blown "jet aircraft war" in history.

The opening of the film begins with a nostalgic flashback over "ham and eggs" recalled by Louie Calhern who recalls the episodes aboard the Fighting Lady and the lives of heroic pilots during the Korean War conflict. The lives of the men and their interaction with their commanders lead to the film's signal sequence in which Ensign Kenneth Schecter (Dewey Martin) is strafed by enemy fire in his cockpit while on a mission and radios back that he is blind. Lt Thayer (Van Johnson) calms him and ultimately talks him back to a perfect landing aboard the Fighting Lady. In another moving scene at Christmas, the entire squadron watches movie footage of a pilot's wife sending her love to her husband---who had just lost his life on a mission.

Frank Lovejoy and Walter Pigeon are perfect fits as salty naval officers bearing up under the harsh war conditions in the Sea of Japan at that time. Former MGM musical comedy star Van Johnson is excellent as Lt. Thayer guiding the sightless ensign back in safely to the carrier deck. A young Kennan Wynn portrays the anxiety of a flight deck signalman very effectively.

There may have been better Korean War films--BRIDGES AT TOKO-RI, PORK CHOP HILL, RETREAT, HELL, but many of those fine films are packaged within romantic portrayals of war. MEN OF THE FIGHTING LADY has no romantic sub-plot, no love story, and, in short, no women. The film is superior in its depiction of the reality of a jet pilot's life walking the thin line between returning from a mission in one piece and facing annihilation. MEN OF THE FIGHTING LADY also contains effective and very real stock footage of jet take-offs and landings as well as North Korean targets under actual cannon fire from American sorties.

MEN OF THE FIGHTING LADY should be viewed by anyone interested in the true mood and atmosphere of the Korean War years when a jet pilot faced demise on every mission--and for the time in our nation's history when Starfighters and Scorpian jets ruled the skies over the Sea of Japan.

Trivia: MEN OF THE FIGHTING LADY should not be confused with the 1944 release THE FIGHTING LADY starring Charles Boyer and Robert Taylor. That film follows the exploits of the USS Yorktown.

Dennis Caracciolo