Midway (film) - Background and Production

Background and Production

The film was shot at the Terminal Island Naval Base, Los Angeles, California, the U.S. Naval Station, Long Beach, California and Pensacola, Florida. The on-board scenes were filmed in the Gulf of Mexico aboard the USS Lexington. The Lexington, an Essex-class aircraft carrier, was the last WW2-era carrier left in service at that point, although the ship was completed after the battle. She is now a museum ship at Corpus Christi, Texas.

Scenes depicting Midway Island were filmed at Point Mugu, California. "Point Mugu has sand dunes, just like Midway. We built an airstrip, a tower, some barricades, things like that," said Jack Smight. "We did a lot of strafing and bombing there."

A PBY-6A Catalina BuNo 63998, N16KL, of the Confederate Air Force, was used in depicting all the search and rescue mission scenes.

It was the second of only four films released with a Sensurround sound mix which required special speakers to be installed in movie theatres. The other Sensurround films were Earthquake (1974), Rollercoaster (1977), and Battlestar Galactica (1978). The regular soundtrack (dialog, background and music) was monaural; a second optical track was devoted to low frequency rumble added to battle scenes and when characters were near unmuffled military engines.

Many of the action sequences used footage from earlier films: most sequences of the Japanese air raids on Midway are stock shots from 20th Century Fox's Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970). Some scenes are from the Japanese Toho film Hawai Middouei daikaikusen: Taiheiyo no arashi (1960) (which also stars Mifune). Several action scenes, including the one where an A6M Zero slams into the Yorktown's bridge, were taken from Away All Boats (1956); scenes of Doolittle's Tokyo raid at the beginning of the film are from Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944). In addition, most dogfight sequences come from wartime gun camera footage or from the film Battle of Britain (1969).

Interestingly, cast member Henry Fonda (Admiral Nimitz) had been one of the narrators of the 1942 John Ford documentary The Battle of Midway, some footage from which was used in the 1976 film. The only woman appearing in the original film was Christina Kobuko as Horuko. In the TV version of the film Susan Sullivan appears playing Matt Garth's girl friend. Later video versions dropped Sullivan to emphasize the all male cast and wartime action.

As with many "carrier films" produced around this time, the US Navy Essex class aircraft carrier USS Lexington played the parts of both American and Japanese flattops for shipboard scenes.