Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xm8r8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-05T13:04:26.424Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Episode 2 - “The Pacific Boils Over”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2024

Get access

Summary

In some Americans’ mindsets, Japan's Pearl Harbor attack on 7 December 1941 was WWII's opening volley. But Henry Salomon's original Victory outline had three full episodes to precede it: a “Prologue: to Spring 1940” and then two segments on anti-submarine warfare against Germany in the Atlantic. Perhaps Salomon decided he’d more quickly engage his audience by presenting Pearl Harbor earlier in the series, prompting its move to EP2.

EP2 marks Japan's initial appearance in Victory. Viewers thus get first hearings of numerous “J-tunes,” including nearly all of Bennett's most-reprised ones (see chapter 5), plus a few appearing only in EP2. In short, EP2 consists of Japan's planning and training for its attack on Hawaii, fol-lowed by the lengthy battle sequence, much of it unfolding without narration. Afterward, Japan's home front celebrates the good news while US military authorities assess casualties and destruction at Pearl Harbor. The program ends with a note of US optimism: America's surprising success in repairing many of the damaged vessels for their return to action.

Rodgers's HAWAII opens this episode, and the territory's populace gives little thought to possible hostilities. This first exposition of HAWAII receives the same arranger's treatment given SONG-SEAS for Victory's title sequence. Bennett had filled out SONG-SEAS fore-and-aft to accompany the full minute of opening credits and does likewise for HAWAII to span EP2's initial, sixty-eight-second segment.

At 2:08 there's an immediate shift to the Japanese viewpoint. A gong [A], along with Bennett's open-fifth chord, establishes an Asian locale for the first time in the series. J-1 then accompanies a quick scene-setting in Japan, “the most thoroughly industrialized nation in the east” where “social, economic and religious ideas from an isolated past survive with superimposed industrial methods and western ways.”

The narration outlines Japan's territorial ambitions for an East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, and we hear the series’ first presentation of J-2 (2:58), followed immediately by a throwaway J-tune [B] at 3:31, never again heard in Victory. J-1 reappears at 3:48, more single-use material at 4:00, and then at 4:23 is J-3's debut, accompanying the first mention of Japan's designs on Pearl Harbor. J-3 recurs at 4:54, 5:04, and 5:14. Next is a detailed Japanese map of Oahu and Pearl Harbor accompanied by Bennett's first transformation of Rodgers's HAWAII (5:19). For Japan's pilots-in-training at 5:43 Bennett crafts [C] a declamatory muted trombone “recitative.”

Type
Chapter
Information
The Music for Victory at Sea
Richard Rodgers, Robert Russell Bennett, and the Making of a TV Masterpiece
, pp. 123 - 131
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×