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It is a performances centric movie

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The opening credits and martial music seem rather grand to be bearing the infamous name of poverty row purveyors Monogram Pictures - now moving (for them) upmarket and soon to rebrand themselves Allied Artists - by whose standards this production by Walter Mirisch (who later gave us 'The Great Escape') obviously represented a prestige project. Those with a knowledge of US military aircraft will as usual have a great time pointing out all the mismatched aircraft footage (just as trainspotters never tire of pointing out that the rolling stock is all wrong in any film with a railway setting); but the 16mm Kodachrome film shot by enterprising wartime cameramen was already proving a gift that keeps on giving, of which this early production was an early beneficiary, aided by Cinecolor photography by Harry Neumann and art direction and editing by David Milton and William Austin that reasonably unobtrusively blends the original footage with studio work and scenes actually shot on the USS Princeton.The names of Sterling Hayden and Richard Carlson gave a strong hint as to what to expect, and sure enough we get the usual conflict between granite-faced by-the-book disciplinarian Hayden and nice guy Carlson who comes to appreciate the wisdom of Hayden's anti-charm offensive on the new boys (who include a youthful-looking William Schallart in a surprisingly substantial early role as 'Longfellow').The film holds your attention for the most part, although Marlin Skiles' music increasingly emphasises exhilaration rather than grim determination on the part of the flyers; and I did find my attention starting to wander during the final twenty minutes when the excitement was supposed to be at its height.

This film seems to never go away. I am not sure why. Perhaps because of Sterling Hayden, perhaps because of the footage of WW2 vintage aircraft and ships. I am fan of both but there is just not much to this. Hayden is on a carrier near Korea and starts recalling his WW2 days and we go quickly to an extended flashback of that. From then on, we get predictable scenes on the carrier involving the various personal issues of the pilots interspersed with stock Navy footage edited into dogfights, formations flying, bombing runs, landings and takeoffs. That is it, don't hope for anything else. The aerial footage itself will not satisfy the purist unless you hope to entertain and flatter oneself with identifying all its inconsistencies. Pilots can take off in a Hellcat, fly in a Corsair, bomb in a Helldiver or Avenger and then land in a Hellcat even though they are supposed to be part of a 1944 Navy fighter squadron which should almost certainly be using Hellcats exclusively. It is really quite an impossible mishmash that would give a good chuckle to any pilot from the time.

Richard Carlson is the pilot who lands a green squadron aboard the USS Princeton, but before they can take a crack at those Japs they all must be whipped into shape by their tough commander, Sterling Hayden. The combat missions increase in difficulty and some losses are incurred but eventually they straighten up and fly right, thanks to Hayden's unyielding demands.Most of the combat footage is familiar from other films about the war in the Pacific. If I see that flaming Japanese fighter skimming the surface of the ocean and curving into the ocean one more time, I think I'll -- well, I don't know what I'll do. Write a love letter to Lindsay Lohan or something equally crazy.Some of the newsreel photos are fresher than that. In one case, we see from the bridge of a carrier the slow-motion bounce of a Corsair that brings the airplane and its monstrous propellor, the size of windmill blades, careering into the superstructure just below the camera placement. I can't imagine how the photographer escaped with his legs intact.At the same time, though, there is a reckless disregard for historical niceties and for continuity. We see the American aviators in the distinctive cockpits of Corsairs (the Japanese are seen in mock ups of canopies from later models of the F6F Hellcat) and the next we see from external shots that they are flying Hellcats or Helldivers or Douglas Dauntlesses. You don't really need to be an airplane aficionado to find this a little irritating. If you're anything but an underaged clod you'll find it annoying. It's like watching a movie of a man driving a speeding car on the freeway and in the next shot he's bent over a bicycle's handlebars on a country road.The plot is a version of the process that had already become cinematic fodder and was to continue serving the same purpose, a thread to hang other events and developments on. The new commander must take charge of a group that is either new to combat or disillusioned by it. Often, as here, he has a tender-minded executive officer who is too close to his men and seems to be coddling them. The commander must be cruel in order to be kind. It's his job to be tough on them because no matter how miserable he makes their lives, it's nothing compared to combat. I'll mention "Take the High Ground," "Patton," "Twelve O'Clock High," and "Flying Leathernecks" as other examples.But although the ultimate goal is lofty enough, the dynamics are really more interesting from a psychological point of view. One thing about military training, or any other preparation for a life-and-death enterprise, is that it provides an outlet for sadistic impulses of the commander. In the movies, the commander almost always ends up showing his humanitarian side. ("The Caine Mutiny" is an anomaly in this regard.) And we, the audience, watch with delight as the commander goes from man to man, ripping each subordinate a new sphincter. Sigmund Freud called it Schadenfreude, taking joy in seeing the pain inflicted on someone else who's shown weakness. And the caring quality of the commander that is revealed at the end, when his men understand him and his motives better, is a sop thrown to the audience so they don't have to feel guilty about having enjoyed all the pain they've just witnessed. I once had a skipper like that. On the surface he was kind of crusty and abrasive, but underneath that he was a sack of sentimental mush. And underneath THAT he was a real MEAN SOB.There's an interesting movie buried in this strictly routine genre film but no one has bothered to try digging it out. Certainly not the writers. ("We're going to hit them, and hit them hard.") I generally like war movies because war is in many ways the ultimate experience -- putting your life at risk because a stranger orders you to and without any hope of personal profit. But it's disappointing when they treat war as if it were something that only belongs in comic books or cartoons. The total social calamity that war represents is cheapened.

My attraction to this B feature from 1952 is the above summary. Tragic perhaps to most, but to me, not even remotely interested in the Navy or war films or Sterling Hayden and Richard Carlson or anything to do with guns (it might as well have been a western too, for that matter, but it isn't) ... my only and complete fascination is that it was made by Monogram using interesting Cinecolor. I actually quite enjoyed FLAT TOP for about an hour then I lost the thread of the story. It seemed to be a never ending circuit of missions/Japs/well filmed interesting dogfights, pink explosions in cine-color and men in jets looking out the window. I think this was one of those films that worked well in huge theaters full of kids or servicemen. Monogram seemed to have well scammed a great idea to make a film: Get permission and co operation from the US Navy to film aboard one real aircraft carrier ( A: no sets needed) using lots of men in uniform (B: no costumes needed and C: hundreds of free extras) cobbled a story together about jostling dogfight commanders and some disciplinary tactics (scenes in small rooms using A+B and some outdoors/on deck filler scenes using C. The actual footage of some spectacular genuine dogfight action seemed to be plentiful (again, provided by the Navy or the War dept) as there was a lot of fight scenes and flying through explosions and bits of blown apart planes (all very interesting and adding to the reality) and on and on it went. Some back projection with actors wobbling and swerving their cockpit and presto: one Govt sanctioned movie as a Korean War propaganda and recruitment piece now showing thu 1952 in 10,000 theaters. Very profitable. My fascination with Monogram's production methods satisfied again. the Red/Bue cine-color was interesting as it resulted in tan skin tones with a lot of blue/grey (handy if you film an aircraft carrier and a sky) and a lot of orange/red (good for lifejackets and explosions). There was no yellow in the film and no actual green. It all worked as I am sure it was expected to. The music was excellent, the studio photography good too. Very well edited into 85 minutes. My research in Australia showed that it had a good run and stayed in play up until the 60s believe it or not. Monogram ceased to be a production name in 1953 when they changed name completely to Allied Artists. People criticize Monogram's inventive budget production methods but I find them ingenious.