A film
review by Bea Soila for FlickersInTime.com on Sept. 27, 2015.
This
account of the preparation to drop the first atomic bomb seems to have been
pretty heavily fictionalized. There’s also some propaganda. Nevertheless, it’s
quite watchable.
The story
is told in flashback from the point of view of Lucey Tibbets (Eleanor Parker), who is nervously
awaiting the return of her husband from a bombing mission to Japan.
Maj. Gen.
Vernon Brent is looking for a good pilot to head the ultra-secret Operation Silverplate that will test the
B-29 bomber which is slated to drop the atomic bomb. He finds his man in Lt.
Col. Paul Tibbets (Robert Taylor),
who has just been denied promotion for questioning his commanding officer. Tibbets
is just barely cleared and posted to Wendover Field, Utah. He is expected to
keep strict discipline over his men, who are forbidden at the point of summary
shooting to enter restricted areas without a pass. Few know the actual purpose
of the testing. In all this, Tibbets is
assisted, and closely watched, by Security Officer Maj. Bill Uanna (James Whitmore) the only other person
who knows the details of the mission.
Uanna
eventually decides that it best to move all the wives of the men to Wendover,
where they can be better controlled via confinement to the base. He discourages
Tibbets from bringing Lucey however. The pregnant Lucey is thus left to give birth
on her own in Washington. Lucey has had no more than seven weeks with her
husband during their entire five-year marriage, and after the couple’s second
son is born she insists on moving to Wendover.
When she
gets there, she finds that the wives and men resent her husband mightily. They
figure their mission could not be anything very serious if it is headed by a
mere lieutenant colonel like Tibbets and if the wives are being allowed on
base. They see Tibbets as overly heavy-handed and self-important. Lucey defends
her husband and then begins to change her mind. He refuses to tell her anything
about anything he does and keeps ordering her to stay out of his business. The
marriage is strained practically to the breaking point.
I don’t
care much for Robert Taylor in his matinee idol persona, but I do like him when
he plays a tough guy. Here he is definitely a grim, overly controlled tough guy
and is very good. Eleanor Parker has the thankless role of asking many inane
questions and refusing to accept anything at face value but she is good at it
too. We are reminded over and over that the bomb’s purpose is to end the war
fast and avoid massive additional casualties on both sides, but this is not too
preachy or heavy handed.
Above and Beyond was nominated for Academy Awards in
the categories of Best Writing, Motion Picture Story and Best Music, Scoring of
a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.
Labels:
action, biography, drama, Eleanor Parker, history
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