- published: 21 Feb 2016
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Midway is a 1976 Technicolor war film directed by Jack Smight and produced by Walter Mirisch from a screenplay by Donald S. Sanford. The music score was by John Williams and the cinematography by Harry Stradling, Jr. The film features an international cast of superstars including Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, James Coburn, Glenn Ford, Hal Holbrook, Toshirō Mifune, Robert Mitchum, Cliff Robertson, Robert Wagner, James Shigeta, Pat Morita, Robert Ito and Christina Kokubo, among others.
The soundtrack used Sensurround to augment the physical sensation of engine noise, explosions, crashes and gunfire.
The film chronicles the Battle of Midway, a turning point in World War II in the Pacific. The Imperial Japanese Navy had been undefeated until that time and out-numbered the American naval forces by four to one.
The film follows two threads, one centered around the Japanese chief strategist Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (Toshirō Mifune), and the other around fictional characters, Captain Matt Garth (Charlton Heston), an American naval officer who is involved in various phases of the US planning and execution of the battle and Garth's son (also a pilot involved in the battle) is romantically involved with Haruko Sakura (Christina Kokubo), an American-born daughter of Japanese immigrants, who has been interned with her parents. Garth calls in all of his favors with a long-time friend to investigate the charges against the Sakuras (apparently with success, as Haruko is free and at dockside when the injured younger Garth is carried off the ship at the end of the film)