Twelve O’Clock High is about the solitariness, burden and responsibility of command in wartime. Officers know that they must repeatedly order men to their possible deaths and the film examines the notion of how much responsibility for these individual lives they should take. In so doing, it ponders whether the course of the war thus held in balance with individual life can cause what the military term an officer’s “over-identification with his men”: that a certain solitariness and remove is thus necessary. However, it soon takes to task the assumption of military professionalism that officers can remain substantially removed from the lives they are nonetheless responsible for. Strictly speaking, compassion is thus militarily unacceptable in stressful situations and yet the human test posed is precisely that, proving that respect and empathy when combined with pride can overcome hurdles and make stress bearable and achievement possible. Peck gradually realizes this over the course of the movie. He starts out wanting to instill in the men under him a sense of pride in their unit and its professional accomplishments, finally moving beyond pride into a genuine concern for the men. At its peak, this leads to projection and identification as part of a natural human empathy. Yet this contradiction if not balanced can lead to a form of psychological breakdown: humanism can only be suppressed for so long, the film suggests.
The film is most adept in charting the gradual way in which this ordinary human empathy transforms a cold officer into a man acutely concerned with the fate of the men under him, wishing even to replace them or at least risk his own life leading them. He takes every death as his personal responsibility, trying not to admit it. To this end, there are telling scenes that reveal his journey. When he sees his assistant (Dean Jagger, whose memory triggers the film) filling out death notices with undue care, he refers to it as a “tough chore”, not realizing the compassion Jagger puts into it makes it far more personal than a mere chore. Later on, Peck, on hearing of a wounded pilot, goes to the hospital, but hesitates about entering and showing his concern. Indecisive about expressing and acknowledging such concern, he turns back and forth before making his decision. Jagger alone notices that Peck’s human empathy will eventually win out over the official need for separateness. Indeed, it is the suppression of empathy that is presented in the film as a uniquely military form of stress that may erupt in psychosis and the so-termed “over-identification” to compensate. Although the military would consider this regrettable, the filmmakers see such as a sign of human strength, a redeeming and humanizing quality. In this way the film balances its view of the duties of command with a sly critique of military inhumanity and impersonality. read more