Historical commentary: Jon Parshall watches 1976's Midway for the first time in 48 years
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- Опубліковано 31 січ 2025
- On this, the anniversary of the Battle of Midway, we'll bring Jon Parshall back on the podcast to provide a historical commentary on the 1976 movie. Despite being a World War II historian who has written what many to be the definitive book on the Battle of Midway and being a historical consultant on the 2019 movie, Jon saw the 1976 movie in theaters when it was released and hasn't seen it since...until today.
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Jon Parshall is a great historian. If you liked him here you should check out his contributions to the Unauthorized History of the Pacific War podcast. His episodes on Midway alone are worth a listen. Enjoy!
Yes he is!
Excellent series with Seth Paridon and Capt. Bill Toti.
I can't wait for Jon's "1942" book more.
Seeing _Midway_ and Black Sheep Squadron on TV in the 1970s piqued my interest in studying the Japanese before and during World War II. Unfortunately, my experiences in trying to learn about who the other side was in the war took a different turn than Jon's. I grew up in a closed-minded Midwestern farming community. One of my school teachers and several of my student peers didn't take kindly to me wanting to study the Japanese. I was called a sympathizer and was heavily ostracized by many. That particular teacher took a dislike to me that lasted until I moved to another community. He deliberately failed me on tests which caused me to be held back a year. I had no way of proving what he was doing since he never gave the tests back for us to see what we got wrong. He took great pleasure in trying to humiliate me in front of the whole class whenever he could. I was already going through some serious emotional turmoil dealing with my parent's very acrimonious divorce where both tried to use me as a pawn against the other. This teacher died a few years ago. I would like to visit his grave after eating a lot of asparagus and drinking a lot of beer, take a Lasix pill or two, and visit his grave with a very full bladder to "pay my respects".
The footage of The Dolittle Raid was from Thirty Seconds over Tokyo.
Wait a second. I too was 13 when I saw this movie in theaters. I was with my brother and his girl friend. We had seats in the back sort of inside the back right surround sound speaker. It was unreal and so loud during the aireal battle scenes. Man it was loud.
A bit harder to find, but there is a TV cut of Midway that has an extended run time and includes parts of the battle of Coral Sea. Adds about 30min I think.
It is on RUMBLE
I stitched together a special cut using the Coral Sea footage for television but dropping just about everything involving the Garth family arc. Matt Garth is NOT meant to be Leyton. Garth is not an intel officer but Air Ops so he could go out into the battle, act tough and die. I also replaced the ship seen leaving Pearl on April 19 with USS Nevada, which DID set sail at this time.
This movie takes footage from a few films: Tora Tora Tora, 30 Seconds Over Tokyo, and Storm Over The Pacific.
The actors playing Nimitz, Spruance, and Halsey (Henry Fonda, Glenn Ford, and Robert Mitchum) had all met the respective individual they are portraying. Nimitz and Toshiro Mifune each taking steps to faithfully portray the finger injuries sustained by Nimitz and Yamamoto respectively. Yamamoto having lost part of two fingers at Tsushima and Nimitz losing part of a finger caught in a diesel engine accident.
This was fun; have watched Midway a handful of times over the last 25 years but really enjoyed watching it this time with your commentary.
At 26:00, a question was asked about whether Layton had a son. He did -- he was my history professor at the University of Minnesota, Edwin Layton Jr.
Most of the Doolittle Raid footage came from "30 Seconds Over Tokyo".
I’ve seen the Panther jet crash used in three different movies. This one where it represents a WWII airplane. In “The Hunt for Red October,” where it represents an F-14 crash. And in a Korean War movie in which it represents a Panther jet crash. I recently read that in the real crash the pilot survived.
ToKo-Ri or Men of the Fighting Lady ? O er
That was really enjoyable. Felt like I was watching the movie with you guys in my den and discussing the various myths and accuracies. Only, I've seen so many of Jon's videos on this battle and read his book, I kept trying to correct parts of the movie that were right and wrong...lol.
Thanks so much! I'm glad you got to watch the movie with us! 😊
There is no full movie available for viewing on YT for free. There are a number of excerpts and a documentary on the making of the movie with Charlton Heston on it and he was in the Army Air Force in the war.
Jon Parshall is my spirit animal.
Rochefort never wore a bathrobe. It was a smoking jacket.
I remember reading once that Captain Garth was a composite character created so the lead actor, the main character who's letting the audience what's going on, could be where ever the action was happening. I can accept that as a story telling device.
I was the same age Jon was when this came out and saw it in the theater in Sensaround just like he did. I vividly remember the first scene when the B-25s were warming up on the deck of the USS Hornet. I could feel the sound of the engines in my chest and that sure got my attention.
As to the rest of the movie, I found all of the actual war footage they'd spliced in a bit distracting. They were constantly switching between plane types in a single scene or showing planes that I knew weren't at Midway at all and that bugged me a lot. Having said that, I was already astute enough to know that there just weren't that many authentic aircraft available for filming, so I grudgingly gave them a pass.
As to telling the story, they got most of the main points right, as least as they were understood at the time. More recent scholarship has shown that some of the points were wrong, but one can hardly fault the writers for that.
All in all, I think this is one of the better WWII movies that has been made.
A fun fact about the 76 movie - Larry Csonka (Miami Dolphins hall of fame fullback) played the role of the engineer on the Yorktown (he had a couple conversations on the phone with the captain).
I wish they could've included the audio. I could've followed with just the audio since I've seen the movie so many time but with just the timestamp, it gets difficult to follow just by memory. I guess I could dig up my old copy somewhere but audio would've help the lazy in me.
A few comments. First, loved Jon's commentary as always. Second, I've watched the 1976 version of Midway a dozen times or more starting when I first saw it at age 17 (I'm a bit older than Jon) with my dad who served in the Navy in the Pacific during WWII. Third, every time a scene comes up that features/references "Tom" or "Haruku" I fast forward as it lends nothing to the movie or the history. Fourth, when "Red" Parks is describing available aircraft on Midway and they're called "relics," I always took it to refer to the Brewster F2A Buffalos. Lastly, and I'd never thought about it before, but portraying the fictional Matt Garth as the "swiss army knife" of the Navy and the reviewers' commentary about that was hilarious. Good job gentlemen!
Matt Garth isn't really even a composite character, he's basically a screenwriter insert character.
The intelligence office was in the basement of one of the Pearl Harbor HQ buildings not the crater in Diamond Head.
I always liked it. Not a great movie but not bad. I prefer it to the CGI 2019 version.
Yea, except the Heston part, which was basically a narrative choice to bring in different historical story elements. It was just as bad as Henry Fonda winning the Battle of the Bulge...haha
@denroy3 Well movies are never 100% accurate. Nor should they be. It's called storytelling.
Although the Tom Garth character was fictional, his combat experience was based on an actual pilot. Daniel Sheedy was assigned to VF-3 and flew as part of the fighter escort for VT-3. While attacking a Zero that was going after his wingman, Sheedy's aircraft was attacked by another Zero, leaving significant damage. Sheedy was able to disengage and return to the American fleet. Instead of landing on his assigned carrier, Yorktown, he attempted to land on the USS Hornet. Due to battle damage, his landing gear collapsed when attempting to land, but he did survive the crash. Sheedy would go on to receive the Navy Cross for his actions at Midway and would retire as a Commander in 1963.
So he would have been part of Thach's escorting fighter group.
I prefer this one over the turd that came out in 2019. The romance and fictional father and son were bad. No Dick Best or Dusty Kleiss in this one and only Dick Best in the 2019. No Frank Jack Fletcher in 2019. Lot of things were missed that I feel were important in both. But I'm pretty sure they didn't want my opinion. Thanks Jon and Dan. You guys did a great job.
1:02:50
Jon and his glass of ice water that never melt！
Was Edwin Layton a Navy carrier-qualified pilot? Didn't Nimitz send one of his staff to Midway Atoll?
Shattered sword is a brilliant book
I think the whole father/son crash bit also tied in the actual crash of one of Thatch's fighters (one of the additional 2 in close escort) that was shot up and landed with a wounded pilot (and killed a few on deck when his guns went off). I'm guessing they were trying to find ways to insert their fictional characters into the real event (doing a love story around Pearl Worked in "From Here to Eternity" and never has since), saw that event and used that as their base.
Couldn't sync up with the movie. Hard to see what's going on without the syn up
I had this video all synced up but UA-cam blocked it all. There's another version on my website that has it all synced up if you want to check it out: www.basedonatruestorypodcast.com/325-midway-1976-with-jon-parshall/
Why does Charlton Heston die at the end of many of his movies, including this one? However, when Capt Garth's plane broke in two upon landing, I saw no evidence of damage to the cockpit.
I've wondered if Nimitz hadn't sent Adm Theobold's cruiser-destroyer force to Alaska, would they have been used to beef up the carrier escort force?
Heston character made up to basically be narrator...to cover all the different things in the story.
I really enjoyed this. I saw it when I was 16 when it came out in the movies. I like it a lot better than the 2019 version. That one had too much CGI for me. I own this movie on DVD. Please let me know next time you do one of these. In another post, I’ll share some movies. I’d like you to do.
A few other things. Along with taking scenes for movies like “Tora, Tora, Tora”, I believe there’s also one or two scenes they took from the movie, “The Battle of Britain”.
Also, concerning the love story. I knew it was fictional, but I was OK with it because I’m sure there was some situation somewhere where at American servicemen fell in love with a Japanese-American girl.
Where is Richard Best & Co.?
This and Tora Tora Tora had the same production company, so were free to re-use footage
This is incorrect. _Tora! Tora! Tora!_ was made by 20th Century Fox. _Midway_ was by Universal studios. Entirely different producers, directors and production companies. Universal purchased footage from _Tora! Tora! Tora!_ to use in _Midway_ which angered Richard Fleischer, director of the American scenes for _Tora! Tora! Tora!_
Spoiler alert: Garth Jr. gets shot up and severely burned but survives, Garth Sr gets his plane shot up and dies in a ramp strike on landing. The problem is with the movie special effects which shows an F4U coming in for a landing and an F9F Panther jet crashing.
PS: The girl is there to meet Garth Jr when he arrives back at Pearl on a stretcher but they kind of leave their relationship hanging.
Here I am at the bar scene where you guys are talking about the consipiracy theorists. The guy in the bar was saying it was predictable and had been predicted that Pearl could be hit from the air, and that not enough care was taken to defend against it. And he was right evidently. So sure, there is some bitterness being expressed but nowhere in this scene does he say anything about Washington or the Navy having let it happen. It was not a monologue on conspiracy, but a monologue on underestimating your enemy and having your ducks in a row in case he decides to come at you.
Anyway, on with the show.
And also they had done fleet exercises in the 1930s showing that Pearl Harbor could be hit.
Am I missing something, should we not see the movie at the same time?
Unfortunately UA-cam blocked being able to see the movie at the same time. I have another version on my website outside of UA-cam if you want to check it out: www.basedonatruestorypodcast.com/325-midway-1976-with-jon-parshall/
This was the movie that started my interest in the Pacific War. Watched it for the first time sometime in 1980, on TV as NBC's Big Event (remember those?) with the Coral Sea edited in. Was about 11 back then. Yeah, a bit corny by today's standards, but I still like it better than the 2019 movie, mainly because it covered details that the 2019 movie completely left out, and it didn't feel the need to completely recreate the Pearl Harbor attack.
Awesome
They also forgot to include Michener/Hornet's "Flight to Nowhere!"
Of course, this has nothing to do with he historical aspect of the film but - JOHN WILLIAMS RULES!
Hear the list of movies I’d like you to do as well(coincidentally, I own all of these on DVD):
1. “The Battle of Britain”
2. “Tora, Tora, Tora”
3. “30 Seconds Over Tokyo”
4. “The Great Escape”
5. “Patton”
6. “The Longest Day”
7. “A Bridge Too Far”
8. “Downfall”
Thanks
This is a great list! I will say that Jon has also covered Tora! Tora! Tora! on my show, and I've talked with other historians about Patton and The Longest Day as well. I'm in the works to cover Battle of Britain but it's not confirmed yet so I can't say much more than that...the others, I'm adding to my backlog. Thank you for the list!
By the way, there are two movies. I’d like you to compare. “The Great Escape” and “Bridge over the River Kwai” I’ll tell you what bothers me. When someone puts something on UA-cam like their top 10 WWII movies, and you feel they can only put one POW movie on the list, they leave off The Great Escape and put on River Kwai. As the history buff, I know that The Great Escape with about 90% historically accurate while The River Kwai movie is about 90 to 95% fictional. I’ve seen documentaries of surviving British and Australian POWs in that camp who said that movie was a joke. But I’ll let you go and explain that.
Thanks for these suggestions!
8:50 so, something the 2019 movie did much better.
54:18 "burning bridges", oh well, he dies in the end so it doesn't matter.
1:00:33 "plucky marines" watch for a clean-shaven Tom Selleck in an early role.
1:24:17 "squadron is basically wiped out" when the squadron was acrambled again that afternoon, Marion Carl and one other guy took the two flyable Wildcats up, and the senior surviving officer was drunk in his tent.
they change his name because flying officer in the movie
dude why arent you showing the movie
Yeah, that would have compensated for all the "dead air".
A suggestion, in case you do another movie commentary...
I'm wondering how many still images from the movie could you legally use?
By including a series of stills, that would help those of us who can't play the movie.
Not that you two aren't handsome enough to watch for a few minutes! 😂
To answer your first question, not much. You might enjoy this link if you want to see more: www.basedonatruestorypodcast.com/325-midway-1976-with-jon-parshall/
@BasedonaTrueStoryPodcast well, at any rate, I do enjoy your insights and your appearances and lively discussions on Unauthorized.
There are so many things historically wrong with this movie I can't even begin.
It did a pretty good job of telling the story of what happened to an audience that wasn't totally familiar with how the battle played out according to our knowledge at the time, but, yeah, it is pretty rife with inaccuracies even for the time it was filmed. That's why I was hoping that the 2019 movie would be so much better, but at times it was just one notch above a Michael Bay film with some of the action and dialogue.
Its important to remember that the critics beat up Tora Tora Tora for being too long and too boring. So when this movie came out they added all the jokes and Garth stuff to give it a drama feel.. wish they stuck to more the facts like tora tora, but critics would have hurt the ticket sales so i guess they went with the drama.
After the Coral Sea battle ended, could the Navy have taken a burning Lexington under tow and let the fire burn themselves out? Obviously a Lexington hulk wouldn't have been available for at least a year.r
_Lexington_ was very heavily damaged by the aviation fuel explosions, dead in the water, and with night approaching, her fires could have been a homing beacon to the enemy.
Charlton heston's character and son I totally made up
I really HATED the phony fake, never existed character that Heston played and his whiny aviator son as well & by the end of the movie I was rooting for the Japanese to shoot them both down dead. It was totally unnecessary to the plot and they could have given Heston another role of some kind. I saw the film in the theater and with the footage taken from Tora Tora Tora ( which I also saw when it came out ) I really wondered WHY Universal even made this picture. Apparently it made money at the box office but it always struck me as odd considering that Tora Tora Tora which was very accurate LOST money at the box office, costing around $55 million.
I have watched Tora many times, whereas this film I have only watched it once and the remake of Midway and the horrible Pearl Harbor films only in the theatre and they are horrible and I have no desire to ever watch them again.
It would have been nice for Parshall to tell us WHY he feels that the ships sent to the Aluetians were not a diversion instead of just making a comment that he debunked it in his book with no explanation.
The producers decided to go with a fictional central character because of the domestic failure of TORA!TORA!TORA! which was blamed partially on it being too much like a documentary.
The 1976 Midway movie is only the second worst movie of all time. This Midway movie was eclipsed for worst movie ever made by a Sonny and Cher movie released about 4 years earlier. Billy Jack, a truly awful flick, is only a distant third in sorriness to the Midway movie.
The movie industry was cursed in the 1970s.
This Midway movie was likely the true reason behind the OPEC embargoes at the time. The movie was so bad the Arabs refused to sell us oil!😯
what a bunch of crap.