Hulkeasexo it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Payno I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

dimplet Reviewer kellyadmirer makes some good points about the historical inaccuracies in Command Decision. Germany didn't put jet planes into the air until near the end of the war. And they could have flown a heck of a lot faster than shown in the surveillance footage in CD. But CD doesn't claim to be non-fiction, and I have long since abandoned expectations of historical accuracy from any Hollywood film, even those claiming to be non-fiction. In CD, the target is jet fighter factories; in Twelve O'Clock High it is ball bearing factories. The point is not historical details such as this, but whether the film realistically depicts the events and time period. In this regard, CD is accurate, I assume, as is TOH. CD is somewhat cerebral, it is not so emotionally gripping. But then when you realize that Clark Gable actually flew bombing missions over Germany, it gives the film a whole new sense of reality. I viewed Dawn Patrol (1938), then Command Decision, and then TOH, which is also the order they were released. I would suggest other viewers do the same, as they are all on the same theme. CD is good, but TOH is the best, and so it is better to watch it last. But they each enhance the other by providing additional perspectives. (There is a fourth movie you should watch: Battle of Britain (1969), along with the BBC documentary on the subject. It is the most historically accurate, and is essential to understanding perhaps the most important battle of WWII, and the incredible bravery of WWII Allied aviators.)It is amusing comparing the style of CD and TOH. Even without seeing the credits, many viewers would recognize CD as an MGM film from its Hollywood style. TOH has a grittier, more realistic style. But in its defense, CD is set at a higher level of command, so the housing of these officers is a lot classier, which fits the MGM approach. However, I can't help wondering if CD was hurt by the somewhat formulaic film production approach at MGM. I see from IMDb that CD did not do well in its original release. Perhaps audiences wanted more action and less talking from a war movie. Ironically, TOH also has relatively little battle action. But I think CD has held up well over the years, and perhaps can be better appreciated by today's viewers precisely because it is not about battle scenes. It is about the human drama of having to make difficult life and death decisions, where you can be certain many under your command will die the next day, but if you don't take that course, many more will die later in the year. The calculus of war depicted in CD reminds me of Sergeant York, who finally decided killing was justified in war if it stopped the killing sooner, and resulted in fewer people dying. He killed because he wanted to stop the killing. Despite the inaccuracies, CD is right about the threat posed by German jet planes. I say "planes" because Hitler, strangely enough, didn't want to use jets for fighters! He felt fighters were defensive weapons, and he wanted to build offensive weapons, so he felt jets should be used for bombers, and for revenge on England. And he thought the war would be over sooner, so he initially rejected building jets. The British were offered design plans for jet planes before WWII began, with Power Jets beginning design in 1936. Some say the British military were slow to accept the idea, though not after the war began. The Gloster Meteor first flew in 1943, and entered combat in 1944.The German's Me 262 could accelerate to 530 mph, 93 mph faster than any Allied prop fighter. The Me 262's first test jet flight was in July 1942, in line with CD. But it didn't enter combat until April 1944. Did Allied bombing delay its manufacture, as depicted in CD? Actually, if Hitler had begun mass producing jet fighters earlier, as depicted in CD, Hitler might have won the war. By 1944, the Allies were building so many aircraft they had nearly complete dominance over European skies. But a German jet fighter could have been a serious threat.

vespasian79 This, along with "Twelve O'clock High", has got to be one of the absolute best movies ever made dealing with the 8th Air Force in World War Two. Taken from William Wister Haines novel and Broadway Play, the movie is actually better than both, given the constraints of the time regarding profanity, as the stage play and novel are loaded with then-taboo words. Clark Gable's portrayal of Brig. General K.C. Dennis is outstanding in a cast of excellent actors. Van Johnson, as his aide, T/Sgt. Evens, comes to stealing the show with some of his expressions. Haines, who was on the staff of the United States Strategic Air Forces in London during the war, draws from his own experience of the AAF command and the strategic and political thinking that went into some of the air strikes against strategic targets in Germany, from the value of the targets to the implications and consequences of letting political agendas at home take precedence over military considerations in the selection of targets, as Walter Pidgeon's portrayal of Maj. General Kane, Dennis' superior, shows all too well. He has sold out his ideals for air power to keep his job, and demands picking easy targets with low losses that will both keep a visiting Congressional Committee happy, and satisfy the US Navy. And Charles Bickford, as cynical, hard-bitten reporter War Correspondent Elmer Brockhurst, shrewdly and sarcastically asks during a Kane diatribe about getting funds and resources from Congress and the Navy "Where did I get the idea this war was against the Axis?" To me, another added plus in this film is that most of the principal cast were veterans of WW2, and Gable was a Captain with the 8th AF in England, who actually flew on some of these combat mission. Overall, and this really is a tough call to make, I'd have to say that I rate this movie just a tad higher then "Twelve O'Clock High", but whenever I watch them, I always make it a double bill.

Robert J. Maxwell It's a little reminiscent of "Twelve O'Clock High," which came out at about the same time. Both focus on a commander who must order near-suicidal bombing missions in B-17s over Germany. Both examine the role of the commander who must sacrifice his men in pursuit of a loftier goal.But "Twelve O'clock High" is situated in an earlier stage of the bombing campaign against Germany, when there were simply not enough airplanes, and not the right kind, to do the job -- and the job was to prove the effectiveness of daylight precision bombing, as opposed to the British practice of night area bombing. It was a genuine historical issue. British losses were awful, and so were ours, leading to our suspension of daylight bombing until escort fighters were available.In "Command Decision", the period is later and incidents from the earlier period are mixed up with later problems. The issue now is not daylight precision bombing but the demolition of the factories in Schweinhaven and elsewhere (made-up names) that are producing a Messerschmidt jet that can out fly anything we have in the air. The new German airplane is given a name in this movie -- I forget exactly what it is, but it's something like "bomber shooter" -- that doesn't do the Luftwaffe credit for its imagination. In reality it was called "Die Schwalbe," the swallow. Nice irony, eh? The British and the Germans were always ahead of us when it came to nicknames. A swallow is a harmless bird. A B-24 was "a furniture van" to the Germans.Anyhow this movie, as good as it is -- and it's pretty good, focuses on command decisions, namely those made by General Clark Gable. He's forced to do what Gregory Peck does in "Twelve O'Clock High," bear down on his men and defy the higher-ups. The higher-ups are represented by visiting congressmen, including Edward Arnold, the eternal blow hard. There are other familiar stereotypical figures -- the wisecracking, all-knowing, down-to-earth sergeant (Van Johnson), the general from Washington who has his manhood squeezed in a vice between inexorable politics and his genuine desire to see the job done. Somebody's heroic nephew, all gung ho, who dies in the last raid after his son is born."Twelve O'Clock High" is probably a better movie, if only because it has a scene of combat at the end. This one is all stage bound. That's not necessarily bad, but it's treated as a platform for speeches. It's talky. "Why, Casey, do you realize how long I've fought for more bombers. Say, I backed bombing when it was a road to Siberia." That sort of thing.And there's another weakness. Only one person in this film changes -- Brian Donleavy as the general who replaces the fired Clark Gable. In "Twelve O'Clock High," Peck's general changes the entire outfit, even at the cost of his own sanity, and it's a pleasure to see the unit evolve.These weaknesses don't add up to that much. And, for anyone who wants to subject himself to the agony of thought, it's an instructive movie. Germany was an organized, territorial, uniformed opponent who had declared war on us and finally signed articles of surrender. The war ended -- with finality. The sacrifice of so many lives was not only justified, it was necessary. Is that reasoning still justified in a post-nuclear environment? What does the word "war" mean?

dougrobb Brig. General K.C. "Casey" Dennis, played by Clark Cable, is faced with a seemingly impossible task. Establish Daylight Precision Bombing by the 8th Air Force in the skies over Germany and France to make a significant impact on shortening the war by destroying Germany's ability to produce arms. The problem is that heavy losses of planes and aircrews are threatening to put an end to his mission. Gable agonizes over these losses of men and planes, and is under constant pressure by his superior, Gen. Kane, played by Walter Pidgeon, to limit his losses while making the strategy work. Gable's performance is excellent. He plays Gen. Casey as man driven by what he must do, with an iron will and seeming coldness, and yet underneath it all, he shows a very human side of a man tormented by the thought of the men he orders to their deaths every day, including men of which he is personally fond. The movie is very well supported by actors like Van Johnson, Brian Donlevy, Edward Arnold as the Congressman critical of Dennis' command, and other great actors of the period like Charles Bickford and John Hodiak. Dennis' description of how Hitler conquered Europe with the air power of the Luftwaffe is one of the most well-written and tersely delivered speeches in the movie. It is one of Gable's finest performances, supported by an all-star cast. It is also historically accurate, portraying the desperate need of the Allies to bomb factories deep inside Germany that are trying to mass produce the first jet fighter in modern air combat, the Messerschmitt Me 262. This movie shows all of the human conflict of war without battle scenes or special effects. It is a moving tribute to the men who fought in the air war over Europe in World War 2.