Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo

Name: Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
Genre: War, Drama
Released: 1944-11-15
Duration: 2 h 18 min
Rating: 7.2
Cast: Van Johnson, Robert Walker, Spencer Tracy, Tim Murdock, Don DeFore

Heart-Warming Romance . . . Ripped from the Heart!

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)

Timing: 2:18 (138 min)

7.2/10
7 393

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no scores

6.7/10
70

7.2/10
7000

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All about film

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Actors and characters

Watch film Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo — Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo - Trailer

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Movie poster "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo"

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Release date

Country

Production

Genre

Budget

$2 900 000

Revenue

$4 297 000

Website

Director

Mervyn LeRoy

Actors

Van Johnson, Robert Walker, Spencer Tracy, Tim Murdock, Don DeFore, Herbert Gunn, Phyllis Thaxter, Stephen McNally, John R. Reilly, Robert Mitchum
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Sam Zimbalist

Operator

Harold Rosson

Composer

Herbert Stothart

Artist

Audition

Editing

Frank Sullivan
All team (12)

Short description

In the wake of Pearl Harbor, a young lieutenant leaves his expectant wife to volunteer for a secret bombing mission which will take the war to the Japanese homeland.

What's left behind the scenes

A .50 caliber machine gun weighed approximately the same as 26.5 liters of gasoline. To reduce the aircraft's weight and thereby increase its operational range, the machine guns were removed and replaced with sticks (usually broom handles) painted black. It was hoped that the fake machine guns would deter enemy aircraft, which in turn would reduce B-25 losses during combat missions. The film was released before the war ended, so it mentioned nothing about replacing machine guns with broom handles to keep information regarding the B-25's bomb load and range secret.
The crew of one of the planes spots Japanese fighters twice and prepares for a dogfight, but nothing happens. This is how it happened in reality. On that very day, the Japanese were planning large-scale air raid defense exercises in Tokyo, so until the very first explosions, Japanese pilots believed the American B-25s were part of the drills. Furthermore, the film's literary source states that Japanese pilots were specifically warned before takeoff that they might not recognize the American planes and react in time, because the Japanese had bombers that looked very similar to the B-25.
The Japanese fishing vessels, which came under fire from American escort ships, had actually managed to send a radiogram to Tokyo, but it was ignored. The Japanese authorities chose to disregard the urgent report from "uneducated" fishermen regarding the presence of two American aircraft carriers in such dangerous proximity to the shores of Japan.
When Lawson's plane, played by Van Johnson (1916-2008), reaches Tokyo and the fires and smoke left by the previous raid of the character played by Scott McKay (1915-1987) become visible below, neither the flames nor the smoke were the result of special effects or pyrotechnics. A fire had broken out at a fuel depot in Oakland, not far from the filming location. The filmmakers seized this opportunity, dispatched a camera plane and the B-25 bombers used in the film to the scene of the emergency, and filmed them over the smoke and fires.