Twelve O'Clock High

Twelve O'Clock High (1949)

Timing: 2:12 (132 min)

7.085/10
135

6.872/10
604

7.7/10
17000

All about film

Video 1

Photo 10

Actors and characters

Release date

1949-12-21

Country

United States

Production

20th Century Fox

Genre

War, Action, Drama

Budget

$0

Revenue

$3 225 000

Website

Director

Henry King

Actors

Gregory Peck, Hugh Marlowe, Gary Merrill, Millard Mitchell, Dean Jagger, Robert Arthur, Paul Stewart, John Kellogg, Robert Patten, Lee MacGregor
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Darryl F. Zanuck

Operator

Leon Shamroy

Composer

Alfred Newman

Artist

Audition

Editing

Barbara McLean
All team (16)

• The term 'Twelve O'Clock High' refers to the combat crews’ protocol for locating approaching enemy aircraft, referencing an imaginary clock face where the aircraft is at the center, and whether the opponent is above, level with, or below the aircraft. Thus, a call of 'Bandits, twelve o’clock high!' was a warning of impending danger.
• Many of the ground scenes were filmed in Chino, California, at an airport that had been used to train military pilots during the war, and where a replica of a control tower, a copy of the 8th Air Force base in England, was built. The airfield was used in the postwar period as a junkyard for old fighters and bombers, and was later used for the penultimate scene of the film 'The Best Years of Our Lives'.
• The crash of the B-17 bomber near the runway at the beginning of the film was not planned. Pilot Paul Mantz was paid $4,500 to crash the bomber, and Mantz himself survived. Until the 1970s, this was the largest sum of money ever paid to a stuntman for performing a single stunt.
• The aerial combat scenes were cut and spliced together with footage from World War II newsreels.
• The term "Twelve O'Clock High" refers to the combat crews' protocol for locating approaching enemy aircraft, referencing an imaginary clock face where the aircraft is at the center, and whether the opponent is above, at the same level, or below the aircraft. Thus, a call of, "Bandits, twelve o'clock high!" was a warning of impending danger.
• Many of the ground scenes were filmed in Chino, California, at an airport that was used to train military pilots during the war, where a replica of a control tower, a copy of the 8th Air Force base in England, was built. The airfield was used in the postwar period as a dumping ground for old fighters and bombers, and was later used for the penultimate scene of the film "The Best Years of Our Lives".