Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)

The story of the 1941 Japanese air raid on Pearl Harbor, and the series of preceding American blunders that aggravated its effectiveness.

Directors:

Richard Fleischer, Kinji Fukasaku

Writers:

Larry Forrester (screenplay), Hideo Oguni (screenplay)

Stars:

Martin Balsam, Sô Yamamura, Jason Robards

Won 1 Oscar. Another 1 win & 7 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Martin Balsam	...	Admiral Husband E. Kimmel
Sô Yamamura	...	Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto
Jason Robards	...	General Walter C. Short
Joseph Cotten	...	Henry L. Stimson
Tatsuya Mihashi	...	Commander Minoru Genda
E.G. Marshall	...	Colonel Rufus S. Bratton
Takahiro Tamura	...	Lt. Commander Fuchida
James Whitmore	...	Admiral William F. Halsey
Eijirô Tôno	...	Admiral Chuici Nagumo (as Eijiro Tono)
Wesley Addy	...	Lt. Commander Alvin D. Kramer
Shôgo Shimada	...	Ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura
Frank Aletter	...	Lt. Commander Thomas
Koreya Senda	...	Prince Fumimaro Konoye
Leon Ames	...	Frank Knox
Jun Usami	...	Admiral Zengo Yoshida

Storyline

This dramatic retelling of the Pearl Harbor attack details everything in the days that led up to that tragic moment in American history. As United States and Japanese relations strain over the U.S. embargo of raw materials, Air Staff Officer Minoru Genda (Tatsuya Mihashi) plans the preemptive strike against the United States. Although American intelligence agencies intercept Japanese communications hinting at the attack, they are unwilling to believe such a strike could ever occur on U.S. soil.

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Plot Keywords:

naval aviation | sneak attack | burning ship | japanese military | u.s. military | 

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Taglines:

The most spectacular film ever made.

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Genres:

Action | Drama | History | War

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Certificate:

G

Did You Know?

Trivia

Tatsuya Mihashi was a highly popular and prolific actor throughout the 1950s and 1960s. After completing this film, he didn't appear in another one for about ten years. In the following 25 years, he appeared in 6 feature films and several made-for-TV movies before his death in 2004.

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Goofs

When Cornelia Fort is flying with her student, the Japanese planes catch up with her, as they are obviously faster aircraft. In the next close-up they fly alongside her plane at the same speed.

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Quotes

Cordell Hull: In all my fifty years of public service, I have never seen a document so crowded with infamous falsehoods and distortions, on a scale so huge that I never imagined until today that any government on this planet was capable of uttering them.
Ambassador Nomura: [pleading] Mr. Hull...
Cordell Hull: [wearily] Go!

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Crazy Credits

The 20th Century Fox logo does not appear on this film.

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Alternate Versions

Original video versions removed the intermission, (between the close-up of a desk calendar showing Dec. 7 and the Japanese beginning to launch planes.) The 1998 video release restores the intermission. The widescreen version prints all subtitles (Japanese translation, character titles) below the screen in the bottom black bar.

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Connections

Featured in Lights, Camera, Action!: A Century of the Cinema: The Greatest Show on Earth (1996)

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Soundtracks

Chattanooga Choo Choo
Music by Harry Warren
Played at the dance

User Reviews

Codename: Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!, the best recreation ever...

Some of you younger movie-goers, may only know of "Pearl Harbor".

Forget it!

If you want to have the actual story of what "really" happened on December 1941, then you have to go back to this movie made in 1970.

"Tora! Tora! Tora!" is a vision from both sides of the coin, not just the American one.

"Pearl Harbor" is more a love story in its context and has only one vision, the unilateral and unnecessary patriotic American one. This is not history as it should be told.

"Tora! Tora! Tora!" was the codename given by the Japanese fleet to its carrier pilots to start the attack on Pearl Harbor.

This is far less a shooting war movie, than an actual historic recreation of facts happening on a certain month, week, day and moment in 1941.

Everything is told, from the bureaucracy involved (slow at that, as usual), to the actual military decisions on both sides and on the ground.

The attack, when it comes, is a majestic recreation that, once watched side by side with the actual documentary footage available, makes you realize that were it in black & white, one could not distinguish its differences. That's how accurate it is!

Expenses were not spared at all in doing this recreation. The aircraft used are all faithful reconstructions (a rarity!).

All the actors involved (American and Japanese) have played their roles with outmost accuracy and sense of drama.

The watcher is taken in and left wondering "what next", even if he already knows the story. Not a moment passes in boredom.

This is another fine movie I would recommend for schools and war museums.

It is a movie for thinkers, not warmungers, and it is certainly not one for those who always love to wave flags around.

In other words, this is history, told at its best.

Details

Country:

Japan USA

Language:

English Japanese

Release Date:

23 September 1970 (USA)

Also Known As:

Tora! Tora! Tora!

Filming Locations:

Ashiya, Japan

Box Office

Budget:

$25,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Twentieth Century Fox, Elmo Williams, Richard Fleischer

Technical Specs

Runtime:

144 min 148 min (Extended Japanese Edition 2009)

Sound Mix:

70 mm 6-Track (Westrex Recording System) (70 mm prints) Mono (some 35 mm prints) 4-Track Stereo (some 35 mm prints)

Color:

Color (DeLuxe)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1