Task Force *** (1949, Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Jane Wyatt, Wayne Morris, Julie London, Bruce Bennett) – Classic Movie Review 7,160

Delmer Daves’s respectful and involving 1949 World War Two drama film Task Force stars Gary Cooper as US Navy chief Jonathan L Scott, who tries to persuade his bosses to back aircraft carriers for the war effort.

Writer-director Delmer Daves’s respectful and involving but surprisingly routine and rather ordinary 1949 World War Two drama film Task Force stars Gary Cooper as US Navy chief Jonathan L Scott, who tries to persuade his bosses to back aircraft carriers for the war effort.

On the day of retiring, he reflects on his long Navy career and his role in the development of aircraft carriers since World War One. The film focuses on the development of US aircraft carriers from USS Langley (CV-1) to USS Franklin (CV-13).

I’m sorry to have to disagree with both aspects of the advertising: ‘Nothing ever like it’ and ‘Nothing you ever liked more’. It is familiar material and it has been done better elsewhere.

Director Daves injects a measure of reality because Warner Bros for once does not insist on filming it all in the studio tank and he has access to good newsreel footage too. Plus the US Navy lent its full support, with naval vessels and facilities. and also allowed the crucial use of the archive footage of the development of naval air power.

But the realism is partly scuppered by some dull and over-plentiful dialogue in Daves’s own, admittedly literate and civilised, screenplay, as well as an unhelpful sentimental streak when a bit more toughness would have helped, giving a hard nut a soft, gooey centre.

However there are reliable turns from Cooper, expert in a good role for him, Walter Brennan, co-starring with Cooper for the umpteenth time as Pete Richard, Bruce Bennett, John Ridgely, Stanley Ridges, Moroni Olsen and Wayne Morris. Jane Wyatt, in her only film with Cooper, has the thankless task of playing Cooper’s wife, Mary Morgan, waiting and watching at the sidelines.

It is the last of the eight films Cooper and Brennan made together.

It is shot in black and white but there are some Technicolor scenes.

Cooper’s character Jonathan Scott is shown as captain of the carrier USS Franklin at the Battle of Okinawa but it was actually commanded by Captain Leslie E Gehres.

There were premiere screenings on USS Midway at sail in the Atlantic and USS Valley Forge in the Pacific.

It cost $1,893,000, and earned $4,071,000 worldwide.

Radio Moscow attacked it as ‘a film that glorifies war and calls for the militarisation of the country’s whole life’.

Also in the cast are Julie London, Jack Holt, Richard Rober, Art Baker, Harlan Warde, John Gallaudet, Warren Douglas, Charles Waldron Jr, Robert Rockwell, William Gould, Sally Corner, Kenneth Tobey, Basil Ruysdael, Charles Williams and Alex Gerry.

Task Force is directed by Delmer Daves, runs 116 minutes, is made and released by Warner Bros, is written by Delmer Daves, is shot in black and white and Technicolor by Robert Burks and Wilfrid M Cline, is produced by Jerry Wald, and is scored by Franz Waxman.

Director Daves and Cooper also made The Hanging Tree together.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7160

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