Anecdotes for
Midway (1976)

photos

board

trailer

details

• This was the second film to be presented in "Sensurround", a special low-frequency bass speaker setup consisting of four huge speakers loaned by distributors to select theatres showing the film. This system was employed only during certain sequences of the film, and was so powerful that it actually cracked plaster at some movie theaters. "Sensurround" was employed in only three other films released by Universal: Earthquake (1974), Rollercoaster (1977), and the theatrical release of Battlestar Galactica (1978) (TV).
  
  
• Most dogfight sequences come from 1942 newsreels, with considerable cropping due to the need to adapt the image to the Panavision framing.
  
  
• Most sequences of the Japanese air raids on Midway are stock shots from 20th Century Fox's Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) (for instance, the jeep thrown into a wall by a bomb blast).
  
  

• Several action scenes, including the one were a Zero slams into the Yorktown's bridge, were taken from Away All Boats (1956).
  
  
• Scenes of Dolittle's Tokyo raid at the beginning of the movie are from Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944).
  
  
• Toshirô Mifune's voice is dubbed by American actor Paul Frees.
  
  
• Jack Smight replaced John Guillermin as director.
  
  
• Almost all the on-board scenes were filmed on the USS Lexington. Lexington was an Essex-class "fast carrier" commissioned in February, 1943. Even some of the "Japanese carriers" shown in birds-eye views were actually Lexington (with the film reversed to put the island superstructure on the port side whereas all US carriers had them on the starboard side) Lexington, decommissioned in 1991, was the longest serving carrier in history. Lexington is now a museum ship at Corpus Christi, Texas.
  
  
• The credits at the end of the movie play over a loop of film. The sailor on the flight deck railing repeats the same movements several times over.
  
  
• The clip showing "Tom Garth's" plane crashing and breaking in two is one of the most used crash sequences from WWII. In the actual crash, the pilot was hardly even shaken up and immediately climbed out on his own.
  
  
• When Matt Garth was making his landing approach after the battle, the number 34 can be clearly seen on the carrier's stern. This is the U.S.S. Oriskany (Big O). The Oriskany was sunk off Pensacola, FL in May, 2006 to become an artificial reef and dive site. The cost was $20,000,000 and is expected to generate revenues, as a tourist/dive site, of over $9,000,000 per year.
  
  
• Robert Mitchum filmed his cameo in a day.
  
  
• Henry Fonda played Admiral Chester Nimitz twice, in this film and in In Harm's Way (1965). In the earlier film, Fonda's character is never referenced by name, only as "CINCPAC", the acronym for his post--Commander-in-Chief Pacific Fleet. It is an old Naval tradition that a captain, and by extension any commanding officer, is not just himself, he is his command and, on certain occasions, such as when arriving or departing a naval warship, is always identified as the command, never by name.
  
  
• According to "The Big E: The Story of the USS Enterprise," by Edward P. Stafford, the real cause of the loss of almost all of the torpedo planes was caused by problems with radio frequencies. The torpedo planes lost contact with the fighters and dive bombers. As they attacked the Japanese carriers first, the Zeros came down to attack them. All attention was focused on the torpedo bombers. When the U.S. dive bombers arrived over the carriers, there was no air cover. Had the attack been synchronized, as planned, it is possible that the end results would have been quite different.
  
  

Related Links