University of Virginia Library

Huge Cast Needed

Like most expensive and
complex war films, this one needs a
huge cast to tell the story and it is
occasionally a game of guessing
who's who. We're treated to
performances by Joseph Cotten,
Jason Robards, James Whitmore,
E.G. Marshall, and Martin Balsalm.
It is fairer to avoid comment on
their acting, for they don't really
do anything in the film except
show their age. Actually the
Japanese characters are far more
impressive, especially Admiral
Yamamoto, Commander-In-Chief
of the imperial Navy. His is the
only character in the film with a
large, actable part, excellently
portrayed by Soh Yamamura.

The real star though is Pearl

Harbor under attack. After waiting
an hour and forty minutes, the
special effects don't disappoint us.
We get a walloping forty minutes of
bombing and chaos. The whole
thing looks pretty authentic, with
only two glaringly obvious process
shots. Such high quality could be
expected from a nation that can
create Mothra and Godzilla and
other demons. In fact, the
Japanese segments of the film are
technically superior to the
American sequences, with the
exception of the attack.

What puzzles me is why the film
was made at this particular time,
which leads into several ironies. The
obvious irony of history is present.
We constantly wonder how the
United States could have so many
dunderheads and have been caught
by surprise. A cinematic irony is
that "Tora!Tora!Tora!" was
released by Twentieth Century
Fox, whose other money makers in
1970, were "M*A*S*H" and
"Patton". The film is a
co-production between Japan and
America, and was released in the
year of the twenty-fifth anniversary
of Hiroshima, and one year before
the thirtieth anniversary of Pearl
Harbor. It makes me wonder what
Fox is up to.

The film can be read objectively
until the conclusion. Admiral
Yamamoto, in a beautifully
composed series of shots, voices his
fears that the attack may have been
a mistake. He walks out of his
conference room and onto the
deck, where he stares at the choppy
Pacific. The Japanese have, he
repeats to himself, "awakened a
sleeping giant and filled him with a
terrible resolve." That final
statement, delivered with painful
dignity, makes sitting through the
film worth-while.