Pearl (miniseries)

Last updated
Pearl
Written by Stirling Silliphant
Directed by Hy Averback
Alexander Singer
Starring Angie Dickinson
Dennis Weaver
Robert Wagner
Lesley Ann Warren
Tiana Alexandra
Gregg Henry
Katherine Helmond
Adam Arkin
Brian Dennehy
Max Gail
Char Fontane
Audra Lindley
Richard Anderson
Marion Ross
Les Lannom
Fred Stromsoe
Music by John Addison
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
No. of episodes3
Production
Executive producers Frank Konigsberg
Stirling Silliphant
ProducerSam Manners
Cinematography Gayne Rescher
EditorDonald R. Rode
Running timeminutes
Production company Warner Bros. Television
Original release
Network ABC
ReleaseNovember 16 (1978-11-16) 
November 19, 1978 (1978-11-19)

Pearl is a 1978 American television miniseries about events leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, written by Stirling Silliphant. It starred a large cast, notably Dennis Weaver, Tiana Alexandra, Robert Wagner, Angie Dickinson, Brian Dennehy, Lesley Ann Warren, Gregg Henry, Max Gail, Richard Anderson, Marion Ross, Audra Lindley, Char Fontane, Katherine Helmond and Adam Arkin.

Contents

The miniseries aired in three installments on ABC on November 16, 17 and 19, 1978. All three parts were among the top ten most watched prime time shows of the week, with the series watched all or in part by about 80 million people. [1]

Cast

Plot summary

While the Japanese First Air Fleet sails toward Hawaii, personnel at the varied bases as well as civilians go about their lives. Primary protagonists are hard scrabble and bigoted Army MP Colonel Jason Forrest and his clashes with his bitter wife Midge, his well-to-do XO Captain Calvin Lankford, and briefly with local news writer Holly Nagata and punkish MP Sergeant Otto Chain.

On the Navy side are Lieutenant Douglas North and his father (Commander Michael North) and mother and also his reacquaintance with former classmate Holly Nagata, a friendship she successfully makes a romantic relationship (right to seducing Doug in her car; though unstated in the miniseries their lovemaking results in pregnancy).

Everyone’s lives are torn asunder when the Japanese attack strikes the island.

Production

To keep production costs manageable, the scenes of the attack were footage originally shot for the film Tora! Tora! Tora! . The miniseries also used newly dubbed footage of So Yamamura to portray Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Japanese commander of the attack.

Novelization

Some sources erroneously cite the miniseries as based on a novel by dramatist Sterling Silliphant, but in fact the reverse is true. As the copyright and publication dates indicate, Silliphant novelized his scripts for a paperback original, intended in part to promote the miniseries. (Silliphant had similarly novelized his screenplay for The Slender Thread .) With a timing typical of the era, it was released by Dell Books as a tie-in edition six months in advance of the mini-series airing.

The novelization is more graphic than the miniseries (such as when Doug North and Holly Nagata make love in her car) and includes a subplot involving a Japanese fighter pilot who eventually strafes Doug North’s ship.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isoroku Yamamoto</span> Japanese admiral (1884–1943)

Isoroku Yamamoto was a Marshal Admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet during World War II. Yamamoto held several important posts in the Imperial Navy, and undertook many of its changes and reorganizations, especially its development of naval aviation. He was the commander-in-chief during the early years of the Pacific War and oversaw major engagements including the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Midway. Yamamoto was killed in April 1943 after American code breakers identified his flight plans, enabling the United States Army Air Forces to shoot down his aircraft.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Clavell</span> Novelist (1921–1994)

James Clavell was an Australian-born British writer, screenwriter, director, and World War II veteran and prisoner of war. Clavell is best known for his Asian Saga novels, a number of which have had television adaptations. Clavell also wrote such screenplays as those for The Fly (1958), based on the short story by George Langelaan, and The Great Escape (1963), based on the personal account of Paul Brickhill. He directed the popular 1967 film To Sir, with Love, for which he also wrote the script.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">War film</span> Film genre depicting wars

War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about naval, air, or land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been strongly associated with the 20th century. The fateful nature of battle scenes means that war films often end with them. Themes explored include combat, survival and escape, camaraderie between soldiers, sacrifice, the futility and inhumanity of battle, the effects of war on society, and the moral and human issues raised by war. War films are often categorized by their milieu, such as the Korean War; the most popular subjects are the Second World War and the American Civil War. The stories told may be fiction, historical drama, or biographical. Critics have noted similarities between the Western and the war film.

<i>From Here to Eternity</i> 1953 film directed by Fred Zinnemann

From Here to Eternity is a 1953 American romantic war drama film directed by Fred Zinnemann and written by Daniel Taradash, based on the 1951 novel of the same name by James Jones. The picture deals with the tribulations of three United States Army soldiers, played by Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, and Frank Sinatra, stationed on Hawaii in the months leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Deborah Kerr and Donna Reed portray the women in their lives. The supporting cast includes Ernest Borgnine, Philip Ober, Jack Warden, Mickey Shaughnessy, Claude Akins, and George Reeves.

<i>Tora! Tora! Tora!</i> 1970 film about the attack on Pearl Harbor

Tora! Tora! Tora! is a 1970 epic war film that dramatizes the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The film was produced by Elmo Williams and directed by Richard Fleischer, Toshio Masuda and Kinji Fukasaku, and stars an ensemble cast including Martin Balsam, Joseph Cotten, So Yamamura, E.G. Marshall, James Whitmore, Tatsuya Mihashi, Takahiro Tamura, Wesley Addy, and Jason Robards. It was Masuda and Fukasaku's first English-language film, and first international co-production. The tora of the title, although literally meaning "tiger", is actually an abbreviation of a two-syllable codeword, used to indicate that complete surprise had been achieved.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Schofield Barracks</span> US Army installation on Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, US

Schofield Barracks is a United States Army installation and census-designated place (CDP) located in Honolulu and in the Wahiawa District of the Hawaiian island of Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi. Schofield Barracks lies adjacent to the town of Wahiawā, separated from most of it by Lake Wilson. Schofield Barracks is named after Lieutenant General John McAllister Schofield, who was the Commanding General of the United States Army from August 1888 to September 1895. He had been sent to Hawaiʻi in 1872 and had recommended the establishment of a naval base at Pearl Harbor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Broome, Western Australia</span> Town in Western Australia

Broome, also known as Rubibi by the Yawuru people, is a coastal pearling and tourist town in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, 2,046 km (1,271 mi) north of Perth. The town recorded a population of 14,660 in the 2021 census. It is the largest town in the Kimberley region.

This is a list of films released in 1994. The top worldwide grosser was The Lion King, becoming the highest-grossing animated film of all-time, although it was slightly overtaken at the North American domestic box office by Forrest Gump, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. The year is considered to be one of the best years for cinema during the post Golden Age Hollywood era and setting the standard for the movies of the modern era.

<i>The Final Countdown</i> (film) 1980 film by Don Taylor

The Final Countdown is a 1980 American science fiction war film about a modern nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that travels through time to the day before the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. Produced by Peter Douglas and Lloyd Kaufman and directed by Don Taylor, the film contains an ensemble cast starring Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, James Farentino, Katharine Ross and Charles Durning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Halsey Jr.</span> United States Navy admiral (1882–1959)

William Frederick "Bull" Halsey Jr. was an American Navy admiral during World War II. He is one of four officers to have attained the rank of five-star fleet admiral of the United States Navy, the others being William Leahy, Ernest J. King, and Chester W. Nimitz.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jason Robards</span> American actor (1922–2000)

Jason Nelson Robards Jr. was an American actor. Known for his roles on stage and screen, he gained a reputation as an interpreter of the works of playwright Eugene O'Neill. Robards received numerous accolades and is one of 24 performers to have achieved the Triple Crown of Acting having earned competitive wins for two Academy Awards, a Tony Award, and a Emmy Award. He was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1979, and earned the National Medal of Arts in 1997, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1999.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Josh Duhamel</span> American actor

Joshua David Duhamel is an American actor. After various modeling work, he made his acting debut as Leo du Pres on the ABC daytime soap opera All My Children and later starred as Danny McCoy on NBC's Las Vegas.

<i>In Harms Way</i> 1965 film by Otto Preminger

In Harm's Way is a 1965 American epic historical romantic war film produced and directed by Otto Preminger and starring John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, and Patricia Neal, with a supporting cast featuring Henry Fonda in a lengthy cameo, Tom Tryon, Paula Prentiss, Stanley Holloway, Burgess Meredith, Brandon deWilde, Jill Haworth, Dana Andrews, and Franchot Tone. Produced with Panavision motion picture equipment, it was one of the last black-and-white World War II epics, and Wayne's last black-and-white film. The screenplay was written by Wendell Mayes, based on the 1962 novel Harm's Way, by James Bassett.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Fleischer</span> American film director (1916–2006)

Richard Owen Fleischer was an American film director whose career spanned more than four decades, beginning at the height of the Golden Age of Hollywood and lasting through the American New Wave.

<i>The Longest Day</i> (film) 1962 epic historical war drama film produced by Darryl F. Zanuck

The Longest Day is a 1962 American epic war film based on Cornelius Ryan's 1959 non-fiction book of the same name about the D-Day landings at Normandy on June 6, 1944. The film was produced by Darryl F. Zanuck for 20th Century Fox, and is directed by Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, and Bernhard Wicki. The screenplay was written by Ryan, with additional material written by Romain Gary, James Jones, David Pursall and Jack Seddon.

Stirling Dale Silliphant was an American screenwriter and producer. He is best remembered for his screenplay for In the Heat of the Night, for which he won an Academy Award in 1967, and for creating the television series Naked City, Perry Mason, and Route 66. Other features as screenwriter include the Irwin Allen productions The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure.

<i>M*A*S*H</i> (film) 1970 film by Robert Altman

M*A*S*H is a 1970 American dark war comedy film directed by Robert Altman and written by Ring Lardner Jr., based on Richard Hooker's 1968 novel MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors. The picture is the only theatrically released feature film in the M*A*S*H franchise.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tiana Alexandra</span> Vietnamese-American actress

Tiana Alexandra-Silliphant is a Vietnamese-American actress and filmmaker. Her indie movie From Hollywood to Hanoi [1] was the first American documentary feature film shot in Vietnam by a Vietnamese-American. Tiana's life's work, Why Viet Nam?, is about her personal story as a child of war and a widow of peace.

<i>From Here to Eternity</i> (miniseries) American TV series or program

From Here to Eternity is a 1979 American three-part, six-hour television miniseries and a remake of the 1953 film From Here to Eternity based on the 1951 novel of the same name. All three conclude with the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. The miniseries originally aired in three two-hour installments on three consecutive Wednesdays on NBC on February 14, 21 and 28, 1979.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Attack on Pearl Harbor in popular culture</span>

The attack on Pearl Harbor has received substantial attention in popular culture in multiple media and cultural formats including film, architecture, memorial statues, non-fiction writing, historical writing, and historical fiction. Today, the USS Arizona Memorial on the island of Oahu honors the dead. Visitors to the memorial reach it via boats from the naval base at Pearl Harbor. The memorial was designed by Alfred Preis, and has a sagging center but strong and vigorous ends, expressing "initial defeat and ultimate victory". It commemorates all lives lost on December 7, 1941.

References

  1. Brown, Les (22 November 1978). 80 Million Saw TV 'Pearl', The New York Times