Directed by Victor Fleming
Screenplay by Dalton Trumbo
Produced by Everett Riskin
Cinematography by George Folsey and Karl Freund
Key Cast:
Spencer Tracy as Pete Sandidge
Irene Dunne as Dorinda Durston
Van Johnson as Ted Randall
Ward Bond as Al Yackey
James Gleason as 'Nails' Kilpatrick
Lionel Barrymore as The General
Barry Nelson as Dick Rumney
Esther Williams as Ellen Bright
Genre: Drama/Romance/War/Fantasy
Runtime: 2 hours
Country: USA
Budget: $2,627,000 (estimated)
Gross: $5,363,000 (1944)
Filmed from: February 1943- September 1943 (a few pick-ups in November)
Released: December 23, 1943 (USA)
December 23, 1943(USA)
Aspect Ratio: 1.31 : 1Tagline: A GUY - A GAL - A PAL - It's Swell!
First Image: Title Card
Opening Shot: Planes in the Sky
World War II provides a high stakes back drop to this Hollywood love triangle. A Guy Named Joe is the kind of film that came out in the 40's with the single goal of comforting its audience. It's not a call to arms, propaganda film. It's more about brotherhood, accepting the death of your loved ones, and having courage to move on. In the wrong hands that could be prosaic, but A Guy Named Joe maintains a light, comedic tone that helps heighten the dramatic and intense moments.
Our protagonist is Pete Sandidge (Spencer Tracy), a cocky bomber pilot who lives for the thrill of the fight. He's got a girl, Dorinda Durston (Irene Dunne), a ferry pilot, who he wishes would ground herself and get a desk job. After a daring mission where Pete went lone wolf- flying too low during a bombing raid, he is reprimanded along with his best friend, Al Yackey (Ward Bond) and sent to Scotland to do reconnaissance. Six months later, Dorinda convinces Pete to transfer to Arizona and teach other pilots; in exchange she'll switch to ground patrol like he wanted. Pete agrees just as Al comes in to announce they spotted a German Aircraft carrier. Jumping at the chance for one last mission and ignoring Dorinda's intuition that his number is up, the men engage in a dogfight. Pete successfully bombs the aircraft carrier... but his plane is damaged by the explosion and crashes into the ocean.
Sent to heaven after he dies, Pete becomes a guardian angel for new pilots. Along with Dick Rumney (Barry Nelson), a former pilot who Pete watched die, they are sent to Arizona to guide the new recruits. No one can see or hear them; rather when they speak the other characters assume it's their subconscious. It's here we meet Ted Randall (Van Johnson), a rich and talented pilot who lacks confidence. Pete guides him not just in the air, but also in his private life with meeting women. Soon, Ted becomes an ace fighter pilot like Pete himself was and a year later they station him in Australia under the command of Al Yackey, now a Colonel.
Dorinda, still pining over the loss of Pete, is also stationed there. At the dance hall, Ted uses Pete's pick-up line on Dorinda. Seeing much of Pete in him, the two hit it off immediately. Within a year Ted is promoted to captain and the two become engaged. Pete's jealousy gets the better of him, and he talks Ted into flying reckless during a training exercise. Instead of being reprimanded, Ted is assigned a dangerous mission: blowing up a Japanese ammunition dump.
Meanwhile Pete is called back to heaven and chided for what he did. The General (Lionel Barrymore) gives a speech to Pete that finally hits home. He puts aside his cockiness and jealousy, realizing he needs to do what is best for everyone. Dorinda ends up breaking off her marriage, knowing that deep down she still loves Pete and it would not be fair to Ted. She learns from Yackey that Ted is leaving on a mission with only a slight chance he will come back.
Deciding to sacrifice herself to save Ted, Dorinda steals the plane along with Pete inside and flies off. Under Pete's guidance, she pulls off the bombing of the Japanese ammunition dump and makes it back safe. In one final act by Pete, he guides Dorinda to let go of her love for him and to move on with Ted. She does. The films ends with Ted and Dorinda walking off to their new lives, and Pete walking in the opposite direction, fading into thin air.
While it's not without its flaws, I did love this film. The performances are great making the characters easy to emphasize with. However, it's the execution of the story that elevates the material into something special. It would be difficult to buy all the contrivances if the storytelling was anything less than first-rate.
The two biggest flaws are:
1) Spencer Tracy and Irene Dunne were too old for their parts.
I got over this real fast, but it still sticks out in my mind that I never bought Spencer Tracy as a young hot-shot pilot. And Irene Dunne, we get her attraction to Van Johnson because of how much Ted reminds her of Pete, but his attraction to her is a bit mysterious. Dunne is pretty in a wholesome way, but not alluring like a younger actress would be.
You see this at work in an earlier scene with Ellen Bright (Esther Williams), who is the first girl Ted picks up under Pete's guidance. She's young, she's pretty, she's fun, and there's a connection between the two involving them cheering up a homesick soldier. It's a great scene. The kind of scene that tells you everything you need to know about Van Johnson's character. It also sets up the dramatic irony of using the same pick-up line when Ted and Dorinda meet.
Now when we get to the romance between Ted and Dorinda, there's nothing wrong with how it's written. You know where it's heading; the film is respectful enough not to spoon feed you like a child. But the fact that Irene Dunne looks old enough to be Van Johnson's mother did give me the sense that I was rooting for them not because they belong together, but because the film want wants me to root for them.
2) A much bigger flaw is the last ten minutes of the film:
Endings are delicate things. Nine out of ten times we know where it's going. It's how well the ending is done that determines whether it's good or bad.
Here, the film goes overboard when Dorinda steals the B-32 bomber.
It doesn't completely fall apart because dramatically it's effective. We need a scene for Tracy to fulfill his character's arc and for Dunne to finally move on from her loss of him.
The problem is it ask the audience to accept that she can pull off the mission and everything will be fine afterward. Pete coaching Ted is one thing- he's a trained bomber. Pete coaching a ferry pilot? For what Yackey tells her is a suicide mission?
Maybe it's meant to put the audience on the edge of their seat, but she pulls it off with no problems and the diffusion of tension feels anti-climatic.
When she gets back to base, there are no consequences for her actions. Considering how important this mission was there should be hell to pay. Police need to be there to pick her up; someone should be waiting to take her for a psychiatric evaluation. Under the circumstances, Dorinda's superiors have an obligation to question her stability. This isn't the kind of mission that gets swept under the mat: bombing one of two Japanese ammunition dumps is sure to make the front page of all the newspapers. She shouldn't be able to walk off into the night like nothing happened.
You could argue that realism isn't too important; this is a movie where a guy goes to heaven and becomes a guardian angel. But it kind of is, because it's established so often that there are consequences to actions. The reason Pete and Al are sent to Scotland is a consequence for how they perform their missions. Later, he tries to get Ted in trouble by piloting recklessly. Pete dies on a mission. They inhabit a world with real consequences.
It's lazy compared to how smart the rest of the film is with this kind of plotting. To all of a sudden throw out the film's own internal logic left a bad taste in my mouth.
The scene in Scotland hits the perfect ominous tone. The way it's lit and the use of fog has Karl Freund's signature all over it, harkening back to his German Expressionist works and the Universal Horror films.
Dorinda hugs Pete, and over his shoulder she sees his B-25 bomber shrouded in a haze. The soundtrack is quiet, all the mood comes from the velvet atmosphere and the lurking plane which Pete refers to as "a ghost." There's an impending doom, a foreboding that lingers. The audience knows as well as Dorinda that Pete's "number is up," and we are waiting to see how. When the spur of the moment mission comes, we, like Dorinda, become helpless to save Pete. It's his cockiness, his character's flaw, that ultimately does him in.
The filmmakers use the fog as an effective transition from Scotland to the cloudy heavens. This is the best visual transition in the film. The best audio transition comes after Pete helps guide James Rourke (Don DeFore) using football metaphors. When Rourke lands, he explains to Ted how it reminded him of the big game he played in. The film cuts to inside the dance hall where Rourke is finishing his story- only now he's telling it to two young girls.
Fittingly for a movie about a love triangle, there are many patterns evoking the number three:
The most obvious being the actors are literally staged in triangular patterns. Ted Randall doesn't enter the picture until about halfway, so in the earlier scenes Al Yackey completes the triangular staging with Pete and Dorinda.
There are three action scenes (One for each in the love triangle): Pete's bombing of the German aircraft carrier, Ted defending the Australian base from an attack, and the ending with Dorinda stealing the B-32 to blow up the Japanese ammunition.
Pete gives Ted the pick-up line of telling girls they look like his sister. He uses it first on Ellen Bright, the second time to try and pick up an Asian waitress, and the third time on Dorinda. The irony builds during each use. With the Asian waitress it's used for humor. By the third time he comes out and tells Dorinda he doesn't have a sister. Dorinda then uses it to share a little white lie with Ted, telling Yackey that in fact Ted has 11 sisters.
Pete dies after meeting up with Dorinda three times. The first when she lands an hour late, the second time at the inn when he gives her the dress ("Girl clothes! From London!"), and lastly in Scotland.
Ted and Dorinda become engaged by their third scene together. They meet at the dance hall, next after the attack on the Australian base, and lastly after his promotion when he proposes to her.
There is also three reprimand scenes. At the beginning, Pete's plane crash lands at the English base. 'Nails' Kilpatrick(James Gleason) confronts Pete with photographs showing him flying too low. A payoff to this that when Ted meets with Kilpatrick for his reprimand, he is given a dangerous mission- the kind of job Pete would have died for. Following this, Pete is brought up to heaven and reprimanded by Lionel Barrymore, who is heaven's stand-in for the Kilpatrick-role.
And the most important are the three poetic monologues in the film:
At the start, a group of kids watch a squadron of planes come in and know its Pete Sandidge returning. There's the incongruous touch of the kids praising Pete's flying and Kilpatrick saying he's trouble. An effective scene that shows us both the positives and negatives of his character. His nonchalant crash landing into the film tells you all the rest. However, it's when he sits down with the kids and they ask him to describe flying solo that we realize how passionate he is. He compares being up in the sky to hearing heavenly music.
Later on, Lionel Barrymore gives a similar speech, describing a feeling that only pilots who fly solo know about. In essence, a feeling where everything in the world makes sense. You see it in Tracy's face the moment his character realizes all the mistakes he has made in life.
And then another similar poetic speech right after Dorinda blows up the ammunition. Pete tells her to lift the plane to the heavens, to hear the music. And it's while they are up there, where she thinks she is flying solo, that Pete uses the speech again- only this time he's using the speech to transform her feelings, to free her so she can move on with Ted.
For me, when analyzing a film, the most interesting thing to study is what the film omits. The use of omission always trips me up in my own writing. When can I jump six months ahead in my character's life without the audience going "Hey, wait a minute?" So, let's look at some specific uses of omission in A Guy Named Joe.
The film starts with a squadron returning home to their base in England. They had just engaged in a successful raid where no one was injured but one plane was damaged. The damaged plane turns out to be Pete's and he crash lands back at the base. Most likely a film today would start off showing the raid despite it being unnecessary. The use of the kids along with Kilpatrick and Pete's attitude when he gets out of the plane sets-up the character in a way that seeing him piloting wouldn't. It also creates a desire to see him perform- which we will in Scotland.
There is a balance in only showing the crash landing and not the dogfight; it tells the audience there will be action but this is not an action movie. An important distinction.
In response to the crash, Kilpatrick sends Pete to Scotland to do reconnaissance work.
It's done as much out of concern- Kilpatrick worrying that Pete's devil-may-care attitude will only get him killed- and as a punishment- because reconnaissance means Pete won't be engaging in any action, the one thing he lives for.
Pete and Yackey spend six months in Scotland bored stiff. But the film doesn't give us a montage, or show a scene of them humorously trying to get along. Instead, those six months are omitted from the film. We cut right to Pete's final night, sitting slouched over, and looking bored. That one single image of Tracy sums up their entire reconnaissance work for six months. It's been everything he thought it was going to be.
Showing the maturing of a character is sometimes a hard thing to do because as a writer you might worry you're not giving enough to validate the growth. When Pete first meets Ted, he lacks confidence. Both in the air and on the ground amongst women. Ted's the kind of guy who sits in the dance hall reading a book. It's through Pete's confident advice that Ted puts down the book and ask Ellen Bright to dance. The camera films his walk over to her, giving the action its proper weight to show how nervous he is to be doing this.
Next, we see Ted on a date with a group of people (and a different girl), where he is telling a story about a man who works in a saw mill and keeps dismembering himself only to grow his limbs back. Who knows how much time has passed between this scene and the Ellen Bright scene, but we learn not only is Ted having fun taking out a lot of girls, but he is confident enough to be in the spotlight. His character has jumped to a new level of maturity. The audience can assume that his piloting has become more confident under Pete's guidance as well. In a way, he is becoming like Pete.
It's this transformation that allows the next series of omissions to work: the romancing of Dorinda.
In real life, they say the more time you spend with a person, the more likely you are to pick up their mannerisms and habits. It's the same here- Van Johnson doesn't start doing a Spencer Tracy impression, but his character recites Pete's words ("Hey, you look like my sister.") and little gestures.
There's a scene where Ted starts pulling at his eyebrow, an action that reminds Dorinda of the last night she spent with Pete. It doesn't help that Ted compares it to picking the petals off a flower- the same thing Pete said. We don't have trouble buying the relationship going from their first meeting to being engaged two scenes later because we see the melding of Pete and Ted.
We've also gotten use to the idea of scenes being placed next to each other happening months apart. If the beginning did not jump 6 months ahead to Pete's last day in Scotland or Ted's maturing did not occur between two splices, maybe it wouldn't work. But the way the story unfolds, it's become a stylistic choice that is in keeping with the film's structure. To use a very cheesy pun: Time flies by in this film.
Another smart touch was the omission of a villain. We never see the Nazis or the Japanese. This lack of identification is the main reason I said this isn't a call to arms propaganda film. We are never given a face to hate; they are a danger hidden in the background of what's really important.
With the love triangle, despite Spencer Tracy being in every scene with Van Johnson, Ted is never fighting Pete for Dorinda. Ted has no ill will because he has no awareness of Pete's presence.
I appreciate the film using this irony sparingly. It would be easy to capitalize on in every scene but instead it's only pointed out in one great line: right after Dorinda breaks off her engagement to Ted, he leaves saying "Do you mind if I hate Pete? Just for a little while?" unaware that he is leaving on a deadly mission with Pete as his guardian angel.
A Guy Named Joe is an underrated classic. It's exciting, romantic, and leaves you on a high note.
Trivia:
1) Pete Sandidge dies while bombing a German aircraft carrier. The Germans didn't have aircraft carriers in World War II.
2) Van Johnson was injured in a car accident during filming. Spencer Tracy refused to let the producers replace him, forcing them to shoot around his part. Van Johnson later came back and finished the role. The film was a hit making Van Johnson an instant star.
3) Steven Spielberg loved the film so much he remade it as Always(1989)
4) There is no guy named Joe in the film. The title refers to slang during World War II- calling another pilot Joe implied he was a good guy.
-Nicolas Edelbach
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