Midway, released in the United Kingdom as Battle of Midway, is a 1976 American war film that tells the story of the Battle of Midway, an important event in the Pacific War of World War II. Directed by Jack Smight and produced by Walter Mirisch, the film was written by Donald S. Sanford. It features Charlton Heston and Henry Fonda in leading roles, with support from many international actors, including James Coburn, Glenn Ford, Ed Nelson, Hal Holbrook, Robert Webber, Toshiro Mifune, Robert Mitchum, Cliff Robertson, Robert Wagner, Pat Morita, Dabney Coleman, Erik Estrada, and Tom Selleck.
The film was created using Technicolor, and its soundtrack used Sensurround to make the sounds of engines, explosions, crashes, and gunfire feel more real. Although some people had mixed opinions about the film, especially regarding the use of old movie clips and a love story that was not needed, the music by John Williams and the photography by Harry Stradling Jr. were praised. The film was the tenth most popular movie at the box office in 1976.
Plot
On April 18, 1942, a surprising and bold bomb attack on Tokyo shocks Japan. Admiral Yamamoto, the leader of the Japanese Navy, convinces the Japanese government to approve his plan to attack Midway Island because of the threat posed by the American Pacific Fleet. At Pearl Harbor, Captain Matt Garth is assigned to monitor the progress of American intelligence efforts. Commander Joseph Rochefort’s team, who can partially read Japanese Navy messages, discover that Japan’s next target is code-named "AF." Yamamoto plans the attack on Midway, with Admirals Nagumo and Yamaguchi commanding the Japanese carrier forces and Admiral Kondo leading the invasion force.
In a separate story, Garth is asked by his son, Ensign Tom Garth, a naval pilot, to help rescue his American-born girlfriend, Haruko Sakura, who is being held in an internment camp. Garth uses his connections to arrange her release, but this causes tension with his son when he speaks to Tom’s commander, who moves Tom to a different squadron.
After the uncertain Battle of the Coral Sea, Rochefort uses a clever trick to confirm that "AF" refers to Midway. Admiral Nimitz orders the American carriers USS Enterprise and USS Hornet, along with the damaged USS Yorktown, which has been quickly repaired, to move to a location north of Midway called "Point Luck" to wait for the enemy.
On June 4, American planes take off from the carriers when scouts spot the Japanese fleet. Nagumo’s carrier planes, unaware of the American carriers nearby, attack Midway, damaging the island’s structures but leaving the airstrip usable. Nagumo orders his planes to switch from bombs to attack the airfield again, but after a scout reports Yorktown’s presence, he changes the weapons to anti-ship torpedoes. American torpedo bombers attack without fighter protection and are destroyed by the Japanese Combat Air Patrol, with only one survivor, George H. Gay Jr. When American fighter planes protect another wave of torpedo bombers, Tom is seriously injured and burned. Japanese fighters are forced to fly at low altitude by the torpedo planes, allowing American dive bombers from Enterprise and Yorktown to locate the Japanese fleet based on a lucky guess by a squadron leader. As the Japanese prepare for their second wave, the American bombers, now unchallenged by Japanese fighters below them, destroy three Japanese carriers—Kaga, Sōryū, and Akagi—leaving them burning.
Japanese planes from the remaining carrier, Hiryū, attack the returning American bombers and severely damage Yorktown. Below the ship, Matt reconciles with his injured son, Tom. Due to a lack of pilots, Matt joins a counterattack against Hiryū, but its planes have already launched. Yorktown is damaged beyond repair and abandoned, and Hiryū is destroyed in flames. Yamamoto orders a retreat. Matt is killed when his badly damaged plane crashes on Enterprise. At Pearl Harbor, Haruko watches as Tom is taken off the ship, and Nimitz and Rochefort reflect on the battle. Nimitz suggests Matt would have said Yamamoto "had everything going for him," and asked, "Were we better than the Japanese, or just luckier?" Spruance and Browning arrive, and Nimitz gives them a firm salute.
Production
John Guillermin was hired to direct the film but was replaced by Jack Smight before filming began. Naval aviator Lieutenant Richard "Dick" Best and Joseph Rochefort worked as consultants. George Gay, the only survivor of Torpedo Squadron 8, visited the set during filming. Toshiro Mifune sent his script to Minoru Genda and Yamamoto's son so they could confirm its accuracy. It is said that Mifune was originally cast to play Yamamoto in Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) but left the project after director Akira Kurosawa withdrew. The filmmakers aimed to show the Japanese and Americans as equals. Principal photography was scheduled to end around July 20, 1975. Filming at sea lasted three weeks, including scenes shot on the USS Lexington, the last World War II ship in service at the time. Robert Mitchum chose to film his scenes while lying in bed. Modern crew members of the Lexington were asked to cut their hair and shave to match World War II Navy rules after watching the filming. Fonda was surprised to learn that Yamamoto and Nimitz had lost fingers in accidents. Fonda adjusted his finger during his performance, and Mifune ensured his uniforms and gloves were as accurate as possible. In the original script, Garth survived.
Filming took place at the Terminal Island Naval Base in Los Angeles, California; the U.S. Naval Station in Long Beach, California; Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida; and San Diego, California. Onboard scenes were filmed on the USS Lexington in the Gulf of Mexico. The Lexington, an Essex-class aircraft carrier, was the last World War II-era carrier in service at the time, though it was completed after the Battle of Midway. It is now a museum ship in Corpus Christi, Texas. Scenes of Midway Island were filmed at Point Mugu, California. "Point Mugu has sand dunes like Midway. We built an airstrip, a tower, and some barricades," said Jack Smight. "We did a lot of strafing and bombing there." A Consolidated PBY-6A Catalina BuNo 63998, N16KL, from the Commemorative Air Force, was used for search and rescue scenes.
The film was one of only four movies released with a Sensurround sound mix, which required special speakers in theaters. The other Sensurround films were Earthquake (1974), Rollercoaster (1977), and Battlestar Galactica (1978). The regular soundtrack (dialogue, background, and music) was monaural. A second optical track was used for low-frequency rumble in battle scenes and when characters were near unmuffled military engines.
Many action scenes used footage from earlier films. Most Japanese air raid scenes were taken from 20th Century Fox’s Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970). Some scenes were from the Japanese Toho film Hawaii Middouei daikaikusen: Taiheiyo no arashi (1960), which also stars Mifune. Scenes such as a Mitsubishi A6M Zero crashing into the Yorktown’s bridge were taken from Away All Boats (1956). Scenes of Doolittle’s Tokyo raid were from Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944). Most dogfight sequences came from wartime gun camera footage or the film Battle of Britain (1969).
The USS Lexington played both American and Japanese carriers in shipboard scenes.
After its theatrical release, additional scenes were filmed in a 4:3 ratio for a TV version that aired on NBC. The TV version was 45 minutes longer and aired over two nights. In the TV version, Susan Sullivan played Ann, the girlfriend of Captain Garth, to explain his divorce from Ensign Garth’s mother. A cut scene was restored to show Garth suffered a hand injury during the Pearl Harbor attack, which kept him from flying. Ann appears in the final scene as the Hornet docks at Pearl Harbor.
The TV version also added scenes from the Battle of the Coral Sea to build up to the Midway battle. Mitchell Ryan played Rear Admiral Aubrey W. Fitch aboard the Lexington, and Jim Ishida played Takeo Koda, a Japanese pilot and Nagumo’s friend. After the Tokyo raid, Koda met Nagumo to express doubts about Japan’s chances of winning. Koda was killed in the Coral Sea battle, and Yamaguchi informed Nagumo of the defeat. Before the Midway battle, Nagumo reflected on Koda’s words to Genda. Jack Smight directed these scenes. The TV version’s end credits used "The Men of the Yorktown March" instead of "Midway March."
In June 1992, a shortened version of the extended film aired on CBS to mark the 50th anniversary of the Midway battle and received high ratings. Later video versions removed Sullivan to focus on the all-male cast and wartime action. The scenes with Sullivan were later included as a bonus feature on the Universal Pictures DVD. The full version was released in dual format by Powerhouse Films in 2021.
Reception
Midway was very popular with moviegoers and opened at number one in the United States box office. It earned $4,356,666 during its first weekend from 311 theaters. The film later earned over $43 million in the United States, making it the tenth most popular movie of 1976 with $20,300,000 in theatrical rental income. Internationally, it earned $57 million, for a total worldwide gross of $100 million.
Critics had mixed or negative opinions about the film.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four. He wrote that the movie could be enjoyed for its exciting visuals but lacked clear storytelling or direction to connect the special effects with the plot. He noted that the unexpected American victory was not convincingly explained. Vincent Canby of The New York Times said the film used outdated footage and clichéd war movie scenes, with performances that seemed unconvincing. Arthur D. Murphy of Variety described it as more of a theme-park-style experience than a quality action movie, criticizing the script for being overwhelmed by action scenes. Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave it two-and-a-half stars, saying the battle scenes were inconsistent but praised Henry Fonda’s performance. He criticized the film’s subplot involving a romance between a sailor and a Japanese-American girl as unnecessary. Gary Arnold of The Washington Post called it a "tired combat epic" and said the film failed to honor the bravery of soldiers. Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times called it a "disaster film" that kept battle scenes clear but criticized the romance subplot as unoriginal. Janet Maslin of Newsweek said the film confused the meaning of war and reduced the battle to nonsense.
Robert Niemi, author of History in the Media: Film and Television, said the film used overused dialogue and old footage, giving it a worn-out feel. He described it as a final, outdated attempt to portray World War II in a time when simple good-versus-evil stories no longer made sense.
On the review website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 39% score based on 18 reviews, with an average rating of 5.9 out of 10.
Historical accuracy
More flag officers were involved in planning and decision-making before the battle, not just Nimitz, Fletcher, and Spruance. The commanding officers had larger staffs than the one or two men shown in the movie. Admiral Ernest King, who was the navy’s top commander, approved the Midway battle plan proposed by Nimitz. Nimitz and the other commanders regularly communicated, so there was no need for a fictional character named Captain Vinton Maddox to consult Nimitz. The failure of Midway-based aircraft attacks on Japanese fleets led Japanese leaders to believe they were unbeatable and that the U.S. military was unskilled.
During American torpedo attacks, Admiral Nagumo reportedly said, “They sacrifice themselves like samurai, these Americans.” However, there is no evidence Nagumo made this statement. Similar to a famous quote from the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora!, there is no proof that Nagumo said this. When the Japanese carrier Akagi was bombed, Nagumo suffered a concussion and was helped by Genda. Witnesses, however, saw Nagumo standing near the ship’s compass, watching the destruction.
The film does not show that the Japanese destroyer Arashi, which accidentally led U.S. dive bombers to the carriers, had earlier attacked the U.S. submarine Nautilus, which had tried to strike the Japanese battleship Kirishima.
Later research by Japanese and American military historians questions certain scenes, such as the dive-bombing attack that damaged the first three Japanese carriers. In the movie, American pilots report seeing empty decks and no enemy fighters. However, historical records, including aerial photographs, show the decks of Japanese carriers were nearly empty. Japanese carriers stored weapons below the flight deck, unlike American carriers shown in the film. When a closed hangar full of weapons was hit by bombs, the damage to Akagi was more severe than if weapons had been on an open deck. A famous radio message, “Scratch one flat top!”, was actually said by Lieutenant Commander Robert E. Dixon during the Battle of the Coral Sea a month earlier, not during the Battle of Midway.
While most characters in the film are based on real people, some are fictional but inspired by real individuals. Captain Matt Garth and his son, Ensign Thomas Garth, are fictional. Garth’s role in planning the battle is loosely based on the real work of Lieutenant-Commander Edwin Layton, who served as an intelligence officer in the Pacific Fleet, spoke Japanese, and translated coded messages into useful intelligence for Nimitz and his staff. Layton was a friend of Joseph Rochefort. Matt Garth’s later actions were entirely fictional and resembled the deeds of two other real people: an intelligence officer on Fletcher’s Task Force 17 and the leader of the final dive bomber attack on the Yorktown by the VB-3 squadron led by LCDR Maxwell Leslie.
The film contains many inaccuracies in its use of historical footage and recreations. Much of the original footage shows events that happened later or involved planes and ships not present during the battle. For example, the first aircraft shown taking off to defend Midway are two Army P-40 Warhawks, but only Marine F4F Wildcats and F2A-3 Buffalos were stationed there. In the second attack on the Yorktown, the film shows two Japanese “kamikazes” crashing into the carrier, but no planes crashed into ships during the battle. The Yorktown was damaged and sunk by torpedoes from a Japanese submarine that broke through the destroyer screen, not by the air attack shown in the film. A nearby destroyer, USS Hammann, was also attacked, killing over 100 men and sinking in four minutes. One of the most obvious errors is the final scene showing Garth’s collision, followed by footage of a Grumman F9F Panther jet plane crash that occurred on USS Midway in 1951, long after the battle.
Like the USS Lexington used in filming, the USS Midway is also preserved as a museum.