Catch-22

During the Second World War the bombardier Yossarian wants out of flying missions. The rule is this: a man who says he is too mad to fly has shown awareness of his situation, which proves he is sane. Meanwhile the officers keep raising the number of missions required to go home. Mike Nichols directed, from a screenplay by Buck Henry, based on Joseph Heller's 1961 novel. Alan Arkin plays Captain Yossarian, with Jon Voight, Bob Newhart and Anthony Perkins in the cast. The production was enormous. Filming began in January 1969 near Guaymas in Mexico, where the crew built an airfield and a five-mile highway. Seventeen flyable B-25 Mitchell bombers were assembled and flew roughly 1,500 hours, for about ten minutes of aerial footage on screen. There was a death on the shoot: a second unit director fell from a plane at 4,000 feet without safety equipment. It opened on 24 June 1970. On an 18 million dollar budget it grossed 24.9 million and was overshadowed by MASH, released the same year. Reviews split. One critic called it the most moving and the best American film of 1970; others wrote that the shifts between comedy and violence do not hold and that it falls short of the novel. Who it is for: viewers who like war satire and people who have read the book. Who it is not for: anyone who has not. The film keeps Heller's circular structure, so for the first half hour who is who and what is happening stay deliberately unclear.