CAST OF CHARACTERS

Produced by:

20th Century Fox

Language:

Japanese

Genre/keyword:

War / wwii

Sound Mix:

Mono

Directed by

Richard Fleischer

Kinji Fukasaku

Toshio Masuda

Cast (in credits order)

Martin Balsam....Admiral Husband E. Kimmel

Soh Yamamura....Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

Joseph Cotten....Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson

Tatsuya Mihashi....Commander Genda

E.G. Marshall....Lt. Colonel Bratton

James Whitmore....Admiral William F. Halsey

Eijiro Tono....Admiral Chuichi Nagumo

Wesley Addy....Lt. Commander Alwin D. Kramer

Shoga Shimada....Ambassador Nomura

Frank Aletter....Lt. Commander Thomas

Leon Ames...Frank Knox

Richard Anderson (I)....Captain John Earle

Kazuo Kitamura....Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka

Keith Andes....General George C. Marshall

Edward Andrews....Admiral Harold R. Stark

Neville Brand....Lieutenant Kaminsky

Leona Dana....Mrs. Kramer

George Macready....Cordell Hull

Norman Alden....Major Truman Landon

Walter Brooke....Captain Theodore Wilkinson

Rick Cooper....Lieutenant George Welch

June Dayton....Miss Ray Cave

Jeff Donnell....Cornelia

Richard Erdman....Colonel Edward F. French

Jerry Fogel....Lt. Commander William Outerbridge

Carl Reindel....Lieutenant Kenneth Taylor

Jason Robards....Gen. Walter C. Short

Hank Jones

Karl Lukas

Ron Masak

rest of cast listed alphabetically

Susumu Fujita

Tosio Hosokawa

Kazuko Ichikawa

Bontaro Miyake

Shunichi Nakamura....Captain Kameto Kuroshima

Kan Nihonyanagi

Ichiro Reuzaki

Edmond Ryan....Rear Admiral Bellinger

Koreya Senda....Prince Konoye

Robert Shayne

Takahiro Tamura....Lt. Commander Mitsuo Fuchida

Hisao Toake....Saburo Kurusu

Asao Uchida....General Hideki Tojo

Junya Usami....Admiral Yoshida

Written by

Larry Forrester

Ryuzo Kikushima

Hideo Oguni

Cinematography by

Osamu Furuya (AAN)

Sinsaku Himeda (AAN)

Masamichi Satoh (AAN)

Charles F. Wheeler (AAN)

Music by

Jerry Goldsmith

Production Design by

Richard Day (I) (AAN)

Taizoh Kawashima (AAN)

Yoshiro Muraki (AAN)

Jack Martin Smith (AAN)

Film Editing by

Inoue Chikaya (AAN)

Pembroke J. Herring (AAN)

James E. Newcom (AAN)

Produced by

Otto Lang (associate)

Elmo Williams

Other crew

L.B. Abbott....special effects (AA)

SYNOPSIS

The movie begins with Lieutenant Commander Fuchida, destined to lead the

attack on Pearl Harbor, speaking about his hopes that the new Commander- In-

Chief isn't the coward that everyone says he is. Another says that Yamamoto

is exactly what they need because he believes in the value of the airplane.

Then a few speak about why he was chosen and give a few reasons. Soon,

Yamamoto gets on the vessel and they begin to play music as a type of

inauguration. Then, Vice- Admiral Zengo Yoshida, the outgoing Commander- In-

Chief, salutes the new one. They go downstairs to sign documents and talk

about the war.

The Prime Minister, Minister of War, and others discuss the United States's

feelings on what they are doing and speak about European fighting and also

what they should do about the U. S. moving fleets from San Diego to Pearl

Harbor. The Secretary of State and Secretary of War speak with a Japanese

war negotiator.

The Japanese are testing torpedo planes at sea. The Commander- In- Chief

wants to commend Fuchida on the planes. He then wonders whether or not these

planes could be used on the ships at Pearl Harbor. He also states that

Japan's only hope is to wipe out the U. S. 's Pacific fleet. They then talk

about this proposal saying that Pearl Harbor is too shallow to use torpedo

planes. He says, the British did it to the Italians in a similar port. They

immediately summoned a master strategist named Minoru Genda. Captain Kameto

Gandhi Kurojima loves Genda's plan for attacking Pearl Harbor. He says that

it is foolproof. He adds that Genda thought of everything and they should

attack on a weekend.

Two American officials attempt to figure out when the best time to attack

would be. They believed it would be at dawn on a weekend. The U. S. had a

new radar system that would see ships and planes.

Many Japanese officials get together to plan this attack. They wonder about

things such as fuel and also the element of surprise. The Commander- In-

Chief says that they will attack, but they must first find the best way to do

so. They said that on November 26, the Japanese will sail from Hiltakopu.

The confirmation code that was set would be "Climb Mount Niitaka". Their

tentative date set for attack would be Sunday, December 7, at dawn, Hawaiian

time. He tells them that if something is worked out for peace before then,

they would not attack.

Stimpson thinks that the Japanese will attack on Sunday, November 30 because

he has pieced together secret messages. The Navy Department takes total

control of the situation. General Marshall wrote up an alert before he went

on army maneuvers because he suspected an attack.

The Japanese were at sea when the attack code came in. They would be

attacking Pearl Harbor on December 7. The U. S. sends out some ships and

planes to probe the Pacific. Just before the Japanese attack, they tell the

men the importance of the mission. Yamamoto gives the men a sort of "pep

talk" to get them ready for battle. The U. S. gets one last message saying

they need a reply from Washington by precisely one o'clock P. M. on December

7, which is about dawn in Hawaii. All of the Japanese soldiers are preparing

for war. The U. S. knows that they are going to get attacked early Sunday

morning on December 7. They try to contact General Marshall and others but

can not get through to them. Admiral Stark recommends that they warn Admiral

Kimmel in Hawaii.

The Japanese are now getting into their planes to attack Pearl Harbor. The

U. S. attack a submarine operating in their area. Officials think it is a

false alarm and refuse to acknowledge it. The Japanese are almost there.

They attacked! No one was expecting it. The Japanese got the element of

surprise, and the U. S. paid for it. All of their ships were destroyed or

beyond repair. The soldiers tried to fight back, but they didn't stand a

chance. When the planes come back to the carrier, Genda wonders why the

second attack hasn't left yet. He is told by Yamamoto that they have

accomplished their mission and must return to base safely. Genda is outraged,

but Yamamoto knows that they are in trouble because the declaration of war

did not get to the Americans until fifty five minutes after the attack began.

His last thought was, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant

and fill him with great resolve."

WHAT I LEARNED

There is reason to believe that, based on the facts of the movie and other

sources, not everyone that should have known about this crisis actually knew

about it. There is a lot of supporting information about this in various

points in the movie. One of the key parts is when Lieutenant Commander Alwin

D. Kramer, dealing with the possible upcoming war for the United States,

comes into the secret room that only a select group of people are allowed in

to. There, he speaks with Lieutenant Colonel Rufus Bratton, another official

with whom he will be working on the assignment, where he is told about who

has the command on the war. It is held in the hands of twelve men. Kramer

refers to them as the "Twelve Apostles." He is one of the only ones who has

a key to a special closet in this room. Inside of it there is a list of

people, and Bratton wonders why a few key people, such as the chief of the

Air Corps and many over seas commanders are not told about anything that is

going on. Kramer then shows Bratton the United States's machine that they

use for decoding messages that the Japanese send between themselves and other

nations. He adds that only these twelve men are allowed to view these

messages after they've been decoded and if they feel necessary, may give it

to anyone they feel needs to know this information. This foreshadows that

there will be a communications problem between the army in the near future as

the war approaches. At this point, it was easy for me to make the prediction

that the United States would be attacked unknowingly.

Another sort of communications problem that I learned about from watching

this movie was that many of the army officials were ignorant about reports

that were sent in at various times. One example is when ships were

patrolling just outside of the harbor when they spotted a submarine between

one of their ships and a target raft that it was towing. They fired at it at

first, and then alerted the ship and the ship sent depth charges, which are

bombs dropped of the back of a ship and are scheduled to explode at a certain

depth. The submarine was not seen again after that. The ship reported it to

headquarters but the general said that he wanted a confirmation on it because

he would not take their word on it because many false reports were sent in

that same week. At another point in the movie, the two privates that were

placed at the radar tower saw a large group of planes heading south towards

the island. They were a little bit worried, so they called headquarters and

reported it. The man that they spoke with, Lieutenant Tyler, said not to

worry about it and hung up. In my opinion, this is considered insanity. He

believed that it was just the flight of B- 17 's that they requested from the

mainland just in case a war broke out. My feeling is that some of the blame

for the United States not knowing about the attack should be put on

Lieutenant Tyler.

Another thing, although shocking, is something I did not previously know.

This was the fact that the Japanese delivered the ultimatum for war fifty

five minutes after the Japanese began their attack on Pearl Harbor. This is

why the United States's naval fleet was practically destroyed. At the end of

the movie, Yamamoto knows that what he has done is going to bring about big

problems between them and the United States. His last quote of the movie is

very truthful: "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and

fill him with great resolve." This means that they caught us off guard and

when we are ready, we will be extremely angry and will lay our vengeance upon

them. My feeling is that if we knew that they would be attacking, although

we may not have destroyed Japan's attack, we might have been able to salvage

some of our ships.