I sometimes wonder about the films that get slapped onto DVD. As masterpieces with built-in markets of fans languish on the shelves somewhere, what does Artisan/Republic drag out of the vaults? Four Faces West, Flame of Barbary Coast, and now a completely undistinguished B/war flick called Flat Top. Maybe there are cultural specialists clamouring for this last title, and maybe WWII buffs will thrill to its martial drumbeat, but for those entranced by the art of the cinema, it offers exactly nothing in the line of pleasure or insight. Instead, it comes up with one good performance (the implacable Sterling Hayden), some cropped shots of guys in cockpits, and a whole lot of stock footage to the greater good of filling the bottom half of a double bill.

Clinging tenaciously to dignity, Hayden stars as Dan Collier, CO of an aircraft carrier positioned in the fight to recover the Philippines from Japan. Predictably, he's a bit of a hardass, as demonstrated when he receives a batch of newbie pilots. The cowboy who ignores a wave-off gets immediately grounded: this ain't no ride at Disneyland--discipline will be their watchword, even as their trigger fingers get ever itchier awaiting active duty. At last, their chance to fly a mission arrives, and it's a largely undefended target--a gimme raid that boosts the fliers' confidence to cocky levels that disturb the seasoned Collier. Sure enough, a Japanese attack goes down, decimating the flying ranks--giving that grounded barnstormer the chance to prove his worth.

The film is about as eccentric as an investment banker and as lovely as an industrial park. More time is spent enthusing over the planes, the targets, and the aircraft carrier than over the actual people managing all of the above: the pilots are introduced in shorthand, largely by their occupation (lawyer, poet, race-car driver, etc.), then hang around the carrier as ciphers ready to be whipped into shape by the godhead Hayden. Occasionally, Richard Carlson shows up as the lieutenant who begs Collier to be more considerate, but that's about the extent of conflict in this thing: Hayden will prevail, the fliers will knock around with some small talk, and then they'll fly a raid against...stock footage. I don't know where they got the colour footage of this stuff, but it's got a documentary haphazardness that stands in stark contrast to the professional haphazardness of the rest of the thing, betraying Flat Top's origins as a Monogram quickie knocked off for no money.

Money, of course, is not an obstacle if you're a talented director with a little style. But you won't find Lesley Selander or his Flat Top anywhere in film literature: the director isn't mentioned in Andrew Sarris' The American Cinema, and even Leslie Halliwell fails to pass judgement on this particular title. Selander is not an Edgar G. Ulmer, able to take a poverty-row budget and give it artistic life--he's a boring hack with an imagination that is only hindered by its lack of financial freedom who comes up with purely mechanical solutions to creative problems. It's pathetic to see him cut madly between studio men in cockpits with the stock footage and broadly light one boring set-up after another--once again begging the question of why this thing was exhumed from its mausoleum in the first place. Although the answer probably isn't very interesting, it'll be a wild tall tale next to this puny picture.

Artisan's Flat Top disc doesn't show any special care for the film it renders. The fullscreen image is bedevilled by print problems; it's not a total disaster, but there's no denying that it's representative of a worn print transferred lackadaisically, thus skin tones are roast-beef red, scenes of darkness have a slightly greenish tinge, and grain is visible in several wide shots of the aircraft carrier. There are, however, no real problems inherent in the authoring of the disc itself. The Dolby 2.0 mono sound is muffled and soft, just barely getting by. There are no extras.-Travis Hoover

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DVD VITALS:
Running Time
85 minutes
MPAA
NR
Aspect Ratio(s)
Standard 1.33:1
Languages
English Mono
CC
Yes
Subtitles
None
DVD-5
Region One
Republic/Artisan

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Published: February 25, 2004