Evenings on the Yorktown

Each night at 8:00 pm a movie will be shown in the vast theater made out of the forward bays of the hangar deck, the Smokey Stover Theater. Who was Smokey Stover ? You'll find out on Saturday night, when you watch the remarkable 1944 movie, shown in theaters all across the United States and Europe, "The Fighting Lady."

But first is Friday night, and I have to be honest with you. "Tora, Tora, Tora!" is a remarkable movie in its own right, a two hour twenty minute all-too-thorough view of the steps leading to Pearl Harbor. Made in 1970, it was the first joint Japan/US effort in movie making, and the noted director Akiro Kurosawa ("Rashomon") shot most of the Japanese half . . . which is verrrrry Japanese. When it isn't fairly tedious it can be, well, odd. Call it a cultural encounter.

If you and your child love history, especially WWII history, this can be interesting stuff. And when the story finally reaches the actual attack on Pearl Harbor, including extensive footage of planes launched from carrier decks which are in fact all filmed on board the Yorktown (as is the final shot of the Enterprise entering Pearl; not the Big E, but the Yorktown), the story becomes dramatic and exciting -- it's also almost two hours into the movie.

If you're still up, it's good. You've been warned.

For the Wikipedia entry, and IMDB page (click IMDB's trivia link for some intriguing notes), try these links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tora%21_Tora%21_Tora%21

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066473/

What you shouldn't let discourage you, after the length and relative tedium of much of "Tora, Tora, Tora!" is to miss Saturday's feature, "The Fighting Lady." Released when victory looked likely but not assured, even the actual name of the ship had to be hidden, giving the Yorktown her lasting nickname.

This film is largely documentary footage, of actual air camera footage from the aircraft and filming on board at the Marianas and Leyte. It is stirring and moving and occasionally heartbreaking, and is less than an hour. DO NOT MISS the movie Saturday night, please. One of the many compelling aspects of this movie is the realization, as you listen to the narration, that they really didn't know for sure how the war would turn out. It seems so inevitable from our vantage, and there is plenty of confidence by the time Robert Taylor voiced the soundtrack in 1944, but it wasn't so long for them since they weren't sure, and they still couldn't tell exactly how it would end.

The Manhattan Project was still as top secret as the actual name of the ship that starred in the movie, the USS Yorktown. Outside of a few scientists in the New Mexico desert and a handful of politicians in DC, no one had a clue how the war actually would end other than in a lengthy, painful, horrid invasion of Japan itself. You get a sense of that resolve and dread, and a great deal of pride, watching "The Fighting Lady" while aboard that self-same ship.

Those wiki and imdb pages are:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fighting_Lady

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036823/

Finally, for a general look at the ship we'll be aboard for two nights, rich with links, including to the largest battleship ever built which the Yorktown helped to sink, the Yamato, just click:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Yorktown_%28CV-10%29