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Pearl Harbour, the sequel: Hollywood, Japan, and the battle to make Tora! Tora! Tora!

A scene from Tora! Tora! Tora!, directed by Richard Fleischer - Getty
A scene from Tora! Tora! Tora!, directed by Richard Fleischer - Getty

If a single image defines the Pearl Harbor attack, it’s the infamous photograph of the USS Arizona – a 33,000-ton super-dreadnought battleship lifting from the water as it sinks and burns, surrounded by billowing black smoke.

Moored with seven other ships – known as Battleship Row – at Ford Island in Pearl Harbor, the Arizona was struck by a 1,760lb bomb, detonating the hundreds of thousands of pounds of ammunition aboard the battleship. Of the 2,300 people who died at Pearl Harbor, almost half died on the Arizona.

When Richard Fleischer directed the American half of Tora! Tora! Tora! – the epic retelling of Pearl Harbor from 1970 – he intended to recreate the image with the film’s purpose-built 309ft reconstruction of the ship. But Fleischer was forced to abandon the shot.

Production couldn’t tell for sure what would happen to the mast if explosions were set off; it might crash down and destroy their Arizona set, a giant recreation of half the battleship built on three oceangoing barges, with functioning guns and a tower that reached 144ft in the air, and cost an incredible $1 million (more than $7 million in 2020).

“I had to make my mind up on the spot as to whether to take the chance and do this – what would surely be a spectacular shot – or forget it and just leave the mast standing and just go with the show,” said Fleischer on the film’s DVD commentary track.

“If it had worked I would have been a hero and if it hadn’t, I think you’d have found me on the bottom of the lagoon of Pearl Harbor.”

Indeed, Tora! Tora! Tora! was an immense piece of filmmaking back in 1970. It took three years of preparation and cost $25 million – the second most expensive film ever made at the time (behind only Cleopatra). The production was divided across two crews – one in the US led by Fleischer, one in Japan led by legendary director Akira Kurosawa – to tell both sides of the story.

Akira Kurosawa, one-time director of Tora! Tora! Tora!, on the set of The Seven Samurai in 1954 - Reuters
Akira Kurosawa, one-time director of Tora! Tora! Tora!, on the set of The Seven Samurai in 1954 - Reuters

It was dedicated to absolute authenticity, with action based on second-by-second accounts (“Research material alone filled several rooms jammed with filing cabinets,” Richard Fleischer wrote in his autobiography.

“Every one of the hundreds of incidents in the film came from those files”). Production was also armed with enough warships and aircraft to launch a small invasion of its own.

“It was said, and rightfully so, that we spent more money on the reenactment of the attack on Pearl Harbor than the Japanese spent actually doing it,” recalled Fleischer.

Executive producer Darryl F. Zanuck conceived Tora! Tora! Tora! as the Pearl Harbor equivalent of D-Day epic The Longest Day, which he also produced. It was decided to make the film a co-production between the US and Japan. The Japanese team would tell the story of the Imperial Navy planning and executing the attack; the Americans would tell the story of the US military at Pearl Harbor and Washington officials responding to the attack.

The events depicted are based on two accounts: Ladislas Farago’s book The Broken Seal, and Gordon W. Prange’s Tora! Tora! Tora!, later expanded into the book At Dawn We Slept (Tora! Tora! Tora! was the codeword used to signal a successful attack).

Prange was named official historian for the Pacific War and spent years meticulously researching, collecting ship logbooks, and interviewing participants from Pearl Harbor. He also served as a technical consultant on the film.

Larry Forrester wrote the American part of the screenplay, while regular Akira Kurosawa collaborators Hideo Oguni and Ryuzo Kikushima wrote the Japanese part. Kurosawa submitted a 400-page script, which would have seen the Japanese sections alone run over four hours.

There were disagreements (via a translator) between Elmo Williams and Kurosawa over scenes which the American producers wanted chopping out. “It got a little embarrassing,” wrote Fleischer in his autobiography. “I couldn’t see how shouting at Kurosawa would change his mind.” But Kurosawa conceded and removed the scenes.

Fleischer had wanted to make the film for a chance to work with Kurosawa; Kurosawa, however, had reportedly signed on believing he was working with David Lean, director of The Bridge on the River Kwai.

'The right shade of white': a scene from Tora! Tora! Tora! - Getty
'The right shade of white': a scene from Tora! Tora! Tora! - Getty

Fleischer later said that Kurosawa was “miscast”. This was not his style of film or filmmaking. Shooting in Kyoto, he was working in a different place (not his usual Toho studio), with a different crew. Kurosawa was also not used to working with American studios; or, perhaps more to the point, the studio was not used to Kurosawa.

Fleischer’s autobiography recounts multiple stories on maverick methods and near-madness: on the first day of shooting, Kurosawa decided he didn’t like the shade of white used on one set, so made the crew repaint it until they got the right shade of white. He cast businessmen friends instead of actors in some roles, causing unrest with producers (“But go argue with a genius,” wrote Fleischer. “The business barons stayed in the picture”).

Kurosawa also had navy jackets and caps made, which he instructed the crew should wear, and insisted they salute the actors. Kurosawa caught one assistant without the proper attire and fired him.

Tora! Tora! Tora!'s recreation of the assault on Pearl Harbour attack, which cost more than the attack itself - Getty
Tora! Tora! Tora!'s recreation of the assault on Pearl Harbour attack, which cost more than the attack itself - Getty

Fleischer recalled how Kurosawa hated a two-storey prefab which 20th Century Fox built at Toeiga Studios because of its Americanised specifications – such as the too-high doorways and western toilets – and saw it as an “affront”. After death threats were reportedly made to the production, Kurosawa became paranoid that he was in danger; he hired bodyguards and arrived on set in a bulletproof limousine. His behaviour was so erratic that members of his Japanese crew mutinied.

“We began getting reports from Japan that disturbed us,” said Richard Zanuck, son of Darryl Zanuck and then-president of 20th Century Fox. “Kurosawa seemed to be having a nervous breakdown. One day, I remember, he drove on to the set in a tank. He also had the habit of rolling up his script and hitting people over the head with it when he was displeased.”

Officially, Kurosawa dropped out for health reasons; in truth, he was let go. He'd been on the shoot for 23 days and captured just eight minutes of film, most of which was unusable. Co-directors Toshio Masuda and Kinji Fukasaku replaced him.

“Kurosawa was a master precisely because he went his own way,” said Fleischer. “You don’t hire Kurosawa to give you just another movie or behave like just another director.”

Hiroshi Tasogawa – Kurosawa’s interpreter during production – has written about Kurosawa’s side of events, including the English language book All the Emperor’s Men. Tasogawa detailed the problems with miscommunication between East and West and how Kurosawa believed he would have supervising authority over the whole film.

The American production took place in 23 locations across Hawaii, including Pearl Harbor itself – beneath which the USS Arizona rests to this day – Ford Island, Hickam Field, and Wheeler Field (plus scenes shot in California and Washington DC). It was complicated and expensive. The budget was originally reported at $15 million but escalated to $25 million.

The USS Arizona after being hit during the attack on Pearl Harbour, December 7 1941 - AP
The USS Arizona after being hit during the attack on Pearl Harbour, December 7 1941 - AP

“There couldn’t have been a more complex film to make,” wrote Fleischer. “Almost every shot involved smoke; flames; explosions; planes diving, bombing, and crashing; torpedoes running; hangars, planes, and ships blowing up; anti aircraft and machine guns firing; and actors acting.”

Fleischer likely saved money on his cast. Instead of casting star names, he used character actors as the key historical figures to maintain a sense of realism.

Martin Balsam was cast as Admiral Husband E. Kimmel; Joseph Cotton as Secretary Henry Stimson; E. G. Marshall as Lt. Colonel Rufus S. Bratton; James Whitmore as Vice Admiral William Halsey Jr; and Jason Robards as General Walter Short. Robards had actually witnessed the aftermath of Pearl Harbor: he arrived two days after the attack aboard the USS Northampton.

Actor Soh Yamamura on the set of Tora! Tora! Tora! - Getty
Actor Soh Yamamura on the set of Tora! Tora! Tora! - Getty

The finest acting belongs to the Japanese half of the film. In the final seconds, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto of the Imperial Navy – played by So Yamamura – reflects on the success of the attack. “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve,” he says (there's some debate about the historical accuracy of these words, or whether the film invented them). Tatsuya Mihashi played Commander Minoru Genda, who planned the Pearl Harbor attack. The real Genda was a technical advisor on the film.

The pilots used for the attack scenes – perhaps the most important cast members of all – were both military and civilian. For the actual planes, production had to procure and recondition aircraft such as B-17 Flying Fortresses, P-40s, and T-6s. “We had to do a lot of repair work to make them fly,” said Fleischer.

Accurate Japanese planes and ships were either non-existent or hard to find (“It’s all at the bottom of the Pacific,” said Fleischer). T-6s – American-built training planes – were dressed up to look like Zeroes, with cowlings, windshields, and wheel skirts. “Something was always falling off them in flight,” Fleischer said.

Japanese crewmembers built sections of ships, including a replica of the aircraft carrier Soryu, while the USS Yorktown doubled as a Japanese carrier.

For the American fleet, the US army and navy co-operated by supplying warships. “But we had to pay for everything,” said Fleischer. “The most expensive thing was the tug boats that we used to move equipment around. Somebody said that if the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor with tugs, then we wouldn't have been able to make the picture."

There were incidents during production. A recreation of the attack on the USS Nevada – the only ship that got underway during the attack – was carefully choreographed and rehearsed: a spectacle of explosions, gunfire, and scrambling sailors. But when the ship drifted away early, it turned to chaos and a number of men were burned by an explosion, blamed on a sudden change in winds. In another scene, a remote control plane loaded with explosives was supposed to run along an airfield and careen into another row of stationary aircraft. But it took off.

“This was astounding to us, because it was not supposed to fly, it was not able to fly, but there it was, flying," said Fleischer. "Once those wheels came off the runway we had lost control of that plane.” Fleischer had to make a split-second decision to blow up the plane before it hit the other aircraft and stuntmen. The spectacular scene was used in the film. “When you see these men running, they really are running to save their lives,” he said.

The film’s inaccuracies are largely technical, due to unavailability of exact ships and planes (though production did source period cars in the area, and set up an assembly line on Ford Island to restore the cars so shiny, working order). It also skirts over the wider political background that led to war between Japan and the US ­– such as Japan’s aggression and atrocities in China, and the US withholding oil – and simplifies Japan’s failure to declare its intentions to end negotiations until after the attack.

But Tora! Tora! Tora! is accurate in depicting American unpreparedness, complacency, and mistakes – see Lt. Kermit Tyler (Jerry Cox) failing to call-in the arrival of Japanese planes. A scene in which a flight instructor is suddenly surrounded by Japanese planes feels like Hollywood fluff, but also really happened (though the real instructor, Cornelia Fort, was actually flying head on with the Japanese planes, not in the same direction as depicted in the film).

Elven Havard fights them off in a scene from Tora! Tora! Tora! - Alamy
Elven Havard fights them off in a scene from Tora! Tora! Tora! - Alamy

Richard Fleischer was so committed to realism that he left out true events because they seemed too incredible to be real. The film's most notable inaccuracy is a spectacular shot of the Japanese planes flying over a giant steel cross on the mountainside of Kolekole Pass. In truth, the cross wasn't erected until the Sixties.

Released on September 23, 1970 – with slightly different versions released in the US and Japan – Tora! Tora! Tora! may have been too real for some viewers. It won an Academy Award for visual effects, though it was criticised in the US. Roger Ebert gave it one star and called it "one of the deadest, dullest blockbusters ever made" and the New York Times dubbed it “Tora-ble”. It's true that the film is slow: it's all diplomacy and briefing rooms until the battle begins post-intermission.

A game of two halves perhaps, but in more ways than one: an unbiased portrayal of the Japanese Navy, and disaster for the unprepared American forces at Pearl Harbor. And the spectacle is undeniable – Tora! Tora! Tora! is a technical masterpiece. “Everybody was always on edge,” said Fleischer. “We needed a lot of luck and the grace of God to get these shots but we did it.”