War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding

right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its

size, and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Music host, James Early. Hello and welcome to another episode of Key Films of World War II in Europe.

This is your host, James Early, as always.

And of course, as always, I am joined by my friend Sean McIrever.

And this week we are going to discuss the classic 1949 film 12 o'clock high, starring Gregory Peck.

This is one of three movies in this series that are from the 40s.

So it's the oldest one we've done so far, but later on we're going to do one from another one from 49,

Battleground, and then we'll do an older one still, 46, the best years of our lives. We are going to do one from another one from 49 battleground and then we'll do

an older one still 46 the best years of our lives we are going to be in the air and on in the

ground a little bit too this is a movie about air combat so the length of the film is two

hours and 12 minutes on rotten tomatoes 96% of the critics gave it a positive rating, and 87% of the fans do.

On IMDB, it's 7.7 is the average, which is very good.

The director is Henry King, and the movie stars Gregory Peck, as I mentioned,

Hugh Marlow, Gary Merrill, Millard Mitchell, and Dean Jagger, as well as a lot of other supporting characters.

It is based on a novel, also called

12 o'clock high, which was written by Cy Bartlett and Barney Lay Jr. I don't know if I said that

right. B-E-I-R-N-E. Or is it Bernie? I don't know. John, do you know? I'm not sure, but it's probably

...