12 O'Clock High: Mona Lisa Bombs by General Motors - Series, Action - An elite bomber crew is tasked with a rather unusual mission. 21 pages - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

12 O'Clock High - IMDB, Wiki, Video/Trailer

My dos pesos:

I remember watching this show as a kid and was always fascinated by the battle scenes, so I thought I would give this a read to start.

The writing is technically sound - a couple of typos, but easily overlooked.  The battle scene was reminiscent of what I remember from the show, so good work there as well.  Overall, the dialogue was okay, although some of the humor was a little forced (sorry--i didn't get the light bulb and whore joke at all, but maybe that was the point).  The ending was unique, although I have a quibble with it that I'll discuss below.

Here are some issues I had: It was a little weird for me to have you introduce the lead pilot, Lt. Rule, on the first page, and then refer to him as "Pilot" the remaining pages.  Same for the rest of the crew. I'm guessing you probably thought we'd get confused as to whether a character was the navigator or tail gunner or bombardier, but I'm guessing from the situation or the slug lines we would have picked it up.  It kind of read awkwardly in places because of that.  For example: "Navigator is bent over a map..."

There was a scene with Ellena which I had no idea why it was there, except to perhaps provide some character background for Rule, because she doesn't appear again in the script and there's no connection to their conversation and the rest of the story.  To me, it's two wasted pages there.

Some of the action blocks get a little too detailed in places and I think it could be pared back a bit.

There were some logic issues here for me.  Bombers never went of bombing runs alone, and usually they had fighter escorts, depending on how far their mission took them, so I was having a hard time understanding this particular mission.

Also, did the bombardier not have any idea that his bombs were just full of paint rather than explosives?  I would have been pretty pissed off if no one had mentioned that to me.  And to tack on to that point, if the bombardier could hit the target with a bunch of paint bombs, why the heck didn't they just have them dropping real bombs on the target?  I mean, it's an interesting picture you're painting (!), but it didn't make much sense to me.

Overall, not a bad job, just could use some trimming and a little work on the logic and dialogue (Particularly the humor part).

Good job on entering and good luck!

Gary

This was difficult to get into. First off, the opening scene shows us an airstrip crowded on each side with stuff that would never be there in case of a crash. I found the naming of characters by their position distracting and confusing. Also, if every line is a VO, consider leaving the VO designation out. It's not adding anything to the story. Including cigarette sharing scenes might be necessary but I challenge the writer to try something else.

At the opening in 1943, I had hoped this would be a precursor to a reboot with modern day bombers. But apparently that's not possible since most of our bombs are actually missiles launched from land. ships or subs. But the writer successfully resisted the temptation to Top Gun this. Bombs aren't particularly interesting but the support crews who get them to where they're going are.

If they're going to Mona Lisa a target, make it be a threat. As in, Ah ha you thought you were safe from our bombers.

I can see why the reboot was written, the dialogue is interesting. And I confess to liking the Mona Lisa part, it's just not the reboot for me.

Never knew this show existed. But I grew up watching Black Sheep Squadron (there's a reboot for you) and get it's along the same vibe. Also, as a history teacher and WW2 buff, I'm always down for script about B-17s.  

Very confusing with all the crew members being refereed to by their position even when you give them names. Julius is still the tail gunner and is Wade the pilot? I think he is but I don;t know. Make us care for these guys, name em.

Ok, his name is Lewis. Why not call him Lewis from the start?

Lots of sarcastic jokes. They're funny. They fit. That's not easy to do. Good job.

History nitpick here. You are right to have the Black Cat meet up with British Lancaster's as the Brits flew the night missions during the war. But night flying and bombing is a totally different skill set than daylight raids. It would not make much sense to send an American crew, even if they are the best on a night mission like this. It may work here, but historically a no no I'd say.

And the Black Cat is going in alone? Another no-no. "Accuracy" is a relative term in WW2. And the chances of a single plane, hitting it's intended target, at night is near impossibility. First of all, these guys would never find the target. as it's dark. The British had a neat trick where they broadcast a very narrow radio signal from England in the direction of the target. As long as the planes stayed on that signal, it would take them there. I think it was code named G or something. These Yanks wouldn't have the equipment or the training to use this correctly. And why alone? That plane would get swarmed by AA and night fighters if it did.

You need more explanation in the briefing as to the peculiarities of this mission for it to make any sense in context. Give a good reason for the solo mission and how it will work. Over the objection of the crew of course.

A Trump joke? Out of place.

Not a wise move to steal anything from Gen Eaker's desk I would think

Correct to have the Bombardier fly the plane while on the final run. But how is the target already on fire if it hasn't been hit yet?

Many questions. So the Black Cat just flies out to sea and never returns home? Why did they paint over the Cat with the Mona Lisa? It really serves no purpose. And they did all that to drop paint bombs on the factory? If they are that low and that accurate, why not drop real bombs? Direct hits on anything are not things you would waste and in WW2 "painting" a target was never done. It's very strange.

I liked most of the banter. The historical details you showed was right, but in other areas the feasibility of what you wrote just wouldn't happen. The script loses some luster during the mission however. When the crew got killed it didn't have a huge effect cause we hardly know these guys.

That said, this is one of the better scripts I've read so far, but as far as the challenge goes, I don't see how this is a reboot for modern audiences in any way. It's not. It's just another episode of the original show it seems. And for that, it fails the challenge.

I’d refer to the Pilot as Lt. Rule once you intro him. It took me out of the read. This problem persists with other characters. Otherwise the writing is good, which makes this particularly frustrating.

Pilot and Ellena are surprisingly unguarded with each other. It feels a tad forced for strangers.

“You got that right. You make your choice and you pay the price. Thank God the US has never elected a total idiot as president.” --- For me, the first two sentences contains all you need here. The last one is on the nose.

I felt a little lost as this went on. As the crew was killed one by one, I suspected this was going to be a dream sequence, since earlier Pilot mentioned having nightmares about going down in flames. What I did not expect was paint bombs. I actually read that again, thinking it might be some sort of metaphor going over my head. I'm not sure it makes much sense. If they could hit it with paint at night, why do the people behind them need it painted to hit it in the day. Shouldn't everyone just know what the target is? Makes me feel like I'm missing something.

The action was good, but I didn’t get a good sense of most of the characters. A little more time spent with the crew on the plane (and giving them proper names) could’ve helped draw me in more. Either that or returning to Ellena and paying off things that you appeared to be setting up there.

I don’t know the show but I checked it out ahead of reading. Thanks, Don!

I really liked this. You clearly know the setting and even if you took liberties with some of the accuracy it’s obvious you are a fan of the period and the subject matter.

I see a lot of complaints about the use of position instead of names. I had that thought at first as well, but I actually appreciated it after a few pages, only because I wouldn’t be able to remember who was what position. There isn’t time in 22 pages to develop all the characters enough for us to remember, so I thought using the position was a smart choice even if it does break from the normal practice. However, in a full script I wouldn’t want it.

The dialogue is quite good, and the humour is appropriate but maybe one joke too many during high tension.My biggest complaint is too many beats in the first half. There is action between every line of dialogue and it disrupts the flow of the dialogue completely.

It all tightens up in the climax and the action is intense. The swearing suggests you see this as a cable show like AMC or HBO or maybe on Amazon or Netflix, and I could see that too. The question I am left with is, who are we following episode over episode? The pilot? The plane? The squadron? Or the whole bomber group?

Great job, I enjoyed this a lot.

WWII! Let's see where this goes...

That's a Super Title! Title is not necessary, just Super. I like Dave's (eldave) recommendation long ago about placing the Super AFTER the first Action. This way you see what's so Super.

A DRONE in WWII? Is this a shooting script with direction?

Right-off, it's a bit wordy. No need for 'asphalt-covered runway'. An asphalt runway or paved runway is good enough. If this base is off the map, it might have been grass or dirt.

"Let's ask directions?" Kinda weird.

Pg. 4 - Still no crew names. Just Pilot, Navigator, Bombardier... enough after you introduce Lewis. Everyone else have names.

Pg. 10 - I think even back then, the US had it's share of idiot Presidents.

Pg. 11 - Numbers need work. In places you write them out and in others you insert numerically (918th vs nine-eighteenth).

Pg. 17 - 109's vs 190's...are they the same thing or different? Also 'An Me 190' just reads wrong.

A lot of banter and a lot of corn. Some good action sequences but nothing that I don't think has already been done. I mean, Memphis Belle had every possible event occur in one flight. Good work writer. A full episode arc.

I like it, but not as a reboot. You throw in some new age humor with the whore/lightbulb joke stuff, but it is awkward when you started the script off with the special on 500lbs bombs kind of humor. It starts out vintage campy and ends like a television version of saving private Ryan, I guess is what I’m trying to convey here.

It’s interesting, but it’s a a bit of a scrambled egg at the moment.

Hey Writer,

So then, what's the shake down? Either a lot of research or a lot of knowledge has gone into this one, which is a great thing for proving you know your subject matter, but a bad thing for us average non military buffs. Whilst it is undeniably impressive research, it makes it a bit of a tricky read, and kinda breaks any momentum and flow. Maybe reign it in a tad and try to find a happy medium.

The writing itself was sound, couldn't really fault it. Pacing varied and the characters were believable, formatting also was good.

One thing I couldn't figure out was the French lass, Ellena. What was she there for? Only seemed to appear for two scenes then vanish again, not sure if I missed something there?

I'd never heard of the series but I did my wiki research and your script seems to be true to the original. A quibble though, is this a reboot or just a new episode? Having not watched the original I find this hard to tell, but there didn't seem much spin on it...

Regardless, quite a good read overall, loads of work has gone into it, and it was alright I think.

Cam

Hi

This has fine writing.

The short scenes at the beginning didn't work for me. You introduce many characters and in every scene, different characters talk to each other. It's like you don't aim to engage your reader in the story. And as a result, my attention wanders off.

It's really a bunch of scenes and every scene is new characters.

Then I thought you gave it a rest when you introduced Elena. The convo between her and the Pilot was kind of fun. I thought I'd suggest that you start with page 5. Is the info up until then important? There's not much of it, just introduction of characters that you don't use much.
But even in the later scenes, you kept on introducing new characters and brought up the old ones just for a little bit.

I forgot who the old characters were and kept going back to check.

I got a kick off some of the banter, so I think you're really talented. But it's hard to understand the story here as you conceal it under a lot of unnecessary in my opinion detail.

I like how smooth the storytelling is so far. It feels like an old show, which I mean as a compliment. Well done.

"Major, I’ve come to appreciate the value of boredom." Ha, brilliant line!

Introducing too many characters when you mentioned the gunners. I feel a bit dazed.

p5: I love your ability to create witty dialogue and interesting characters. But I don't feel the tension of any conflict or something at stakes so far.Hope this changes soon.

"We compromised: I killed him and blew up the bridge."

Boy, am I jealous. I admire your skill, fellow writer. You've got swag.

"The crew agrees with this assessment but isn’t any happier."

So what did they do? They nodded or something. This line doesn't have enough "visuality."

if a Mona Lisa winking lewdly can be termed respectable.

Nice touch.

P9: The odds are against them. I like that.

Why there is only 9 reviews for this? Everyone should be reading this. This is amazing!

"Thank God the US has never elected a total idiot as president." Ha! Loved it.

p11: I need to stop for a second and mention again how smooth the storytelling is. There is nothing in your writing that's distracting or knocking me out of the flow of the story. This is something to be admired.

p12: Although Savage and Gately's scene is heartwarming, I think it's too early to revisit the worrying team in this story. The black cat hasn't been in any real danger so far, so the worrying scene had no real impact on us. It was kinda wasted simply be being misplaced, otherwise, it was a good scene.

"Did any of your mother’s children live?" I didn't get it. I must be out of the loop or something.

"The plane immediately corrects course."
You should have made it more descriptive. Bank right? Bank left?

"Bombardier is FIRING the twin chin guns at the fighters in
front. Navigator is BLASTING away with a gun in a side hatch."

Why are you using present continuous here?

Oh, I get it. They painted the roof to make it a clear target in the morning. I love that.

Final thoughts:
Well, I did enjoy reading this script. I think your craft is admirable. Makes me feel a little jealous. I loved the fight scene. But I believe if there is anything to be mended in the story is to make the fight scene more suspenseful.  For some reason, you never got me to worry about them surviving the night or not. I'm not sure how you are going to fix that but you should.

Very well done. 4/5

Writer,

Well done. Geez Louise, if only I got the ending this would have been my fav so far. It still might be, and I actually feel kind of stupid that I didn't understand the ending, as I feel now as if I might have missed something I should have picked up on. This was really well written. Good pacing, good characters that I cared about. Good writing gives you just enough info so you can fill in the blanks yourself -- that's what this one did. Nice job!

Steve

Writer,

Yep. I'm stupid. I just got it now! Very well done!

Steve

Last one. Better be good. 21 pages? Hoo boy.

Apparently, this is an old TV series based on a Greg Peck movie. Not my strongest genre/subject matter, but let's see what you did.

General Motors? Nice.

2K yards = 6K feet = 1.8288 km

Quoted Text Quonset huts

I thought you were referring to a tepee and Quonset was the tribe? You might want to clarify for the uninitiated.

Quoted Text Well, let’s ask for directions.

A man? Asking for directions?

An airport runway or a fashion show runway?

Quoted Text A GROUND CREWMAN steps in front of [the] bomber and signals for it to taxi off the asphalt onto the grass perimeter.

How does it "leap" if it's "painted on"?

I would spell out "twelve," especially since you spelled out all the other numbers in that sentence.

What's with the triple-space before "the young pilot"?

I don't see a LEWIS RULE. Must be a new character?

You usually spell out numbers in dialogue, except for huge ones.

Now Quonset is lowercase? Typo or intentional? Apparently, it's a proper name.

Dan Cooper is another new guy? Any relation to the New Zealand murderer?

Quoted Text MAJOR DAN COOPER, [who stands] in front of the hut’s door.

Active voice. Try to avoid passive voice.

Spell out ranks, titles, and honorifics.

Quoted Text Yeah. We don’t exist.

Huh?

If you're referring to the Judeo-Christian Bible (the one with Jesus and all those guys), it's a proper noun and capitalized.

A literal pedestal?

How is a black cat a location? Are you referring to the jet bomber?

Wade Law. Yet another new character.

Quoted Text I just hope it doesn’t fall apart over the North Sea.

What "doesn't fall apart"?

I googled Clarry Darnell and the first hit was your script. Must be a new guy?

So far, I haven't come across any characters from the original show. Is this a brand new cast of characters?

There's actually an author named Alan Smale.

I would capitalize "Lieutenant."

Quoted Text EXT. E/O CLUB - DAY

Poor slug. Nobody knows what "E/O" is. I'd prefer...

Quoted Text EXT. ENLISTED/OFFICER'S CLUB - DAY

Quoted Text A radio is playing SWING MUSIC in background.

Given the time period, this is pretty obvious. They didn't exactly have rock or rap back then. "Play Tupac again, Sam."

Quoted Text before entering the Enlisted/Officer’s club[.]

Quoted Text glass of wine in one hand.

Is she about to meet her connection? Or a footloose man?



I'm picturing Tina Fey since she already has a scar. But she's hardly 26. Haha.

Quoted Text Cats kill rats. That’s what we do. Plus my wife told me if I flew a plane with a girl on it, we would stop making babies. I like making babies.

Best line I've read so far.

Okay, now the dialogue is getting good.

Quoted Text Yes. We had an argument. I wanted to blow up a bridge and he didn’t want me to blow it up.

Quoted Text We compromised: I killed him and blew up the bridge.

Haha! Love this line.

Ben Gately appears to be a character from the Greg Peck movie, played by Hugh Marlowe. Now you have a connection to the existing IP.

Quoted Text In place of the Black Cat is now a respectable likeness of the MONA LISA -- if a Mona Lisa winking lewdly can be termed respectable.

And this explains the Mona Lisa title.

Quoted Text thirteen of [them].

Quoted Text As [its] wheels

Quoted Text Gopher [K]iller to crew

If that's his radio alias, it should be capitalized in full.

Quoted Text The land below is dark

And the moon... is the only... light we'll see.



I assume RAF = Royal Air Force? Might want to note this in the following action line.

Quoted Text Hooray for them. Kill all those fucking krauts.

Welcome to cable.  

Quoted Text You got that right. You make your choice and you pay the price. Thank God the US has never elected a total idiot as president.

73 years later...

Then again, Trump didn't legitimately win. The Russians were involved. But still, the man sitting in the Oval Office makes pond scum look honorable. Now he's separating immigrant kids from  their parents? Fuck this guy.  >

Camera directions are usually verboten.

Axis Sally was a real-life American radio broadcaster (Mildred Gillars), hired by the Third Reich to spew propaganda.

Frank Savage. So far, the only character from the TV series you've used.

Quoted Text Well[,] then you’d be out of brains, wouldn’t you[,] gopher killer?

Quoted Text Signal sighted two o’clock low!

Getting there...

Stovall, the second character from the TV series (and the movie, to boot).

So it is Fw 190 (sic). I stand corrected.

I'm sure most people won't know all of these planes, jets, bombers and aircraft.

AFC = Air Force Cross?

No one shoots Mona Lisa in my town!

Quoted Text Spitfires 12 o’clock high.

BOOM! got it!   Title drop.

Quoted Text LEAD BOMBER

"Leed" or "Led"?

Quoted Text EXT. THE NORTH SEA

*SPOILER*

Quoted Text Roof of the huge building is now a massive canvas holding an ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONIST MASTERPIECE comprised of all the colors of the rainbow, courtesy of the Black Cat.

This is a badass visual right here.

Nice script. I was a little lost when the action kicked in, but the writing was quite good.

Well...p, I'm all done this month. Excellent job.