Twelve O'Clock High | |
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Theatrical release poster
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Directed by | Henry King |
Produced by | Darryl F. Zanuck |
Screenplay by | Henry King (uncredited) Sy Bartlett Beirne Lay, Jr. |
Based on |
Twelve O'Clock High (1948 novel) by Sy Bartlett Beirne Lay, Jr. |
Starring |
Gregory Peck Hugh Marlowe Gary Merrill Millard Mitchell Dean Jagger |
Music by | Alfred Newman |
Cinematography | Leon Shamroy |
Edited by | Barbara McLean |
Distributed by | Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation |
Release date
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Running time
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132 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $3,225,000 (U.S. rentals) |
Twelve O'Clock High is a 1949 American war film about aircrews in the United States Army's Eighth Air Force who flew daylight bombing missions against Nazi Germany and occupied France during the early days of American involvement in World War II, including a thinly disguised version of the notorious Black Thursday strike against Schweinfurt. The film was adapted by Sy Bartlett, Henry King (uncredited) and Beirne Lay, Jr. from the 1948 novel 12 O'Clock High, also by Bartlett and Lay. It was directed by King and stars Gregory Peck, Hugh Marlowe, Gary Merrill, Millard Mitchell and Dean Jagger.
The film was nominated for four Academy Awards and won two: Dean Jagger for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and Thomas T. Moulton for Best Sound Recording. In 1998, Twelve O'Clock High was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".
In 1949, former U.S. Army Air Forces officer Harvey Stovall (Dean Jagger) is vacationing in Great Britain when he spots a familiar Toby Jug in an antique shop window and is told that it came from Archbury, where Stovall served with the 918th Bomb Group during World War II. Convinced that it is the same jug, he buys it and journeys to the derelict airfield.