THE INCREDIBLE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR.

An ambitious epic aiming to do for the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor what The Longest Day (1962) did for the D-Day landings at Normandy – cover the event thoroughly from both sides. Unlike The Longest Day though, the filmmakers chose lesser known stars in order not to deflect attention from the story. The cast is good and there’s credibility; interesting to follow the conflicts within both sides and mistakes made ahead of the attack. December 7th is explosively brought to life; footage was later re-used in several movies and TV shows. However, we never get close to these real-life figures.

1970-U.S.-Japan. 143 min. Color. Widescreen. Directed by Richard Fleischer, Toshio Masuda, Kinji Fukasaku. Music: Jerry Goldsmith. Cast: Martin Balsam (Husband Kimmel), Soh Yamamura (Isoroku Yamamoto), Jason Robards (Walter Short), Joseph Cotten, Tatsuya Mihashi, E. G. Marshall… James Whitmore, Leon Ames.

Trivia: Based on a Reader’s Digest article by Gordon Prange and “The Broken Seal”, a book by Ladislas Farago. Akira Kurosawa was originally hired to direct the Japanese scenes.

Oscar: Best Special Visual Effects.

IMDb