Flat Top Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		2.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

Flat Top Blu-ray Movie Review

War is heck.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 25, 2013

Having grown up in a military family, I can tell you from personal experience that for a civilian at least, the most terrifying thing that can be experienced is watching takeoffs and landings from an aircraft carrier. Though my father was an Army General, at some point when I was a young kid, I accompanied him on some tour of an aircraft carrier which was conducting maneuvers of some kind and I remember to this day standing on the flight deck with absurdly huge earphones covering my ears (the noise was still overwhelming) and standing there in stunned awe as planes careened in to the ridiculously short landing strip, using that seemingly flimsy hook to snag the line that would bring them to a sudden (and at times precarious) stop. The “flat top” of this film’s title is not a reference to some of the early fifties haircuts on some of the male members of the cast, but is instead a euphemism for an aircraft carrier. Flat Top proudly trumpets its collaboration with the United States Navy and in fact utilizes quite a bit of location (and stock) footage which in some ways is the film’s most notable aspect. The actual story here is a fairly rote tour through one commander’s memories of having initiated a new squadron of “top guns” during the waning days of World War II, whipping them into shape and dealing with both the thrills and tragedies that battles always bring. The film actually utilizes a framing device which is evidently set during the Korean conflict (the film dates from 1952), when Commander Dan Collier (Sterling Hayden) is on the deck of the (actual real life) U.S.S. Princeton, where he’s watching some maneuvers and begins thinking back to his actual days of service on the aircraft carrier. That gets us into the bulk of the film, which is set beginning in 1944, where Collier’s voice over insists that the fighting was only getting worse after several years of global conflict.

Was it a requirement that every serviceman in World War II needed to be known by a nickname. Now, truth be told, I shouldn’t complain about the fact that Flat Top has a rather inordinate amount of such soubriquets for several of its supporting characters, for my own father was in fact known by a nickname, even in some war stories by famed correspondent A.J. Liebling where my Dad appeared as a “recurring character”. So, maybe it was the order of the day. One way or the other, after we drift back into Collier’s memories, we’re quickly introduced to a bunch of flyboys, many of whom have descriptive nicknames. These include Red (Bill Phipps), Snakehips (John Bromfield) and Longfellow (William Schallert), though the initial story hinges on a guy without a nickname, Ensign Barney Smith (Keith Larsen). Smith disobeys a wave off (a signalman telling him not to land his plane on this attempt), damaging the plane in the process, but walking away uninjured. Collier, who has just met his new Executive Officer, Lt. Joe Rodgers (Richard Carlson), tells Rodgers that his first assignment is letting Smith know he’s grounded.

And that sets up what turns out to be the central conflict for the rest of this fairly predictable entry in the World War II genre—the hard bitten commander in conflict with his junior officer who doesn’t seem to understand that the gruff old guy actually has everyone’s best interests in heart. The story has been told a thousand times before (and since), and Flat Top hits all the requisite notes. Rodgers has a long history with the new squadron, and has been something of a father figure to them, but Collier is insistent that any coddling must stop before the crew actually sees battle in the Philippines. That sets the two at odds, providing fodder for most of the tension the rest of the film attempts to exploit.

Flat Top has some odd similarities to another recent Olive Films Blu-ray release, Retreat, Hell!. In both of these films Richard Carlson portrays a guy who’s probably too nice for his own good, one attempting to come to terms with the rigors of being in battle. In both of these films the Carlson character has to learn to deal with a superior officer who seems imperious, but who turns out to know what he’s talking about. And of course, both films feature the slow dawning awareness by the Carlson character that war is not child’s play and that maybe this impetuous old guy barking out orders is someone to respect and pay attention to.

The film is probably most notable for its blend of archival footage and the main fictionalized plotline. Sticklers are going to roll their eyes at outright errors that are made (planes change types virtually midair), but the footage gives the film at least a hint of authenticity. Sterling Hayden, an actor who seemed to ooze the kind of understated machismo that made other similar performers much bigger stars than he ever seemed to become, is also stalwart and believable in the featured role. Lovers of the George Reeves Superman may also get a kick out of the fact that both original Lois Lane (Phyllis Coates) and Jimmy Olsen (Jack Larsen) pop up in small roles.

Flat Top Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Flat Top is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. Fans of bargain basement studios may get a bit of a chuckle out of the fact that this Monogram release was actually filmed in a process called Cinecolor, a now largely forgotten bipack process that actually dated back to the earliest days of color cinematography, but which was deemed a frankly inferior (though low cost) alternative to what was then three strip Technicolor. Cinecolor never really had the lustrous tonalities of Technicolor, and that quality is more than evident in this high definition presentation, which tips precariously toward the pink-red side of the spectrum quite a bit of the time. One of the biggest problems here seems to be aging elements which have faded incrementally virtually frame by frame, leading to register differentiations that are quite substantial over relatively short amounts of time. Balancing that issue, however, is a generally decently sharp looking image, at least in the non-stock footage. Both the location shots as well as stock footage are notably more ragged looking, soft and very grainy, as should be expected. The rear projection work here also looks quite soft, with less robust color. As with most Olive releases, no restoration or digital tweaking has been done to these elements.

Flat Top Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Flat Top features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track that sounds quite good, with a rather full sounding midrange and good, if not overwhelmingly boisterous, low end activity. The film's dialogue is always cleanly presented and the rousing score by the underappreciated Marlin Skiles sounds full bodied. There's still a slightly boxy sound to most of this track, but it has no major damage to report.

Flat Top Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are offered on this Blu-ray disc.

Flat Top Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Flat Top isn't bad by any stretch of the imagination, but it's resolutely predictable down to the last shot where we get former internecine combatants as hardy buddies and collaborators, along with a former hotshot now getting ready to discipline a new hotshot for the very same peccadilloes he himself was castigated for a decade earlier. The film is decently paced and well staged (despite some patently fake looking rear projection work which diminishes some of the verisimilitude of the actual location photography), but it never really amounts to much. Hayden fans or aficionados of anything World War II related may want to check this out, as may those with a special interest in aircraft carriers. This Blu- ray features some problematic video but very good audio.