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 [Larger view] | Back to Bataan
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| may we never forget Bataan | |
| Some of the most horrific events of WWII occurred in the Pacific Theater, and this film touches on what happened in Bataan, where tens of thousands of U.S. and Philippine soldiers died in captivity, either on the infamous Death March, the appalling POW camps, or the hell-ships. At the beginning and ending, this film briefly shows some of the survivors, though it is "sanitized", and the men have some flesh back on their bones. John Wayne is terrific as Colonel Madden, who organizes the resistance fighters, and does his own stunts, some of which must have left him muddy and bruised. Though the script is sometimes stilted, it is based on actual events and people, and was written as history was happening, taken from the daily newspapers to the screen. Much in this film can be said to be "propaganda", as it is "good vs. evil", with no subtleties or gray areas, but these were the days when Hollywood and patriotism were compatible, a sentiment that filmmakers seem to have lost, and a time that seems long gone. | |
| Just a little patriotism involved | |
| Back to Bataan is a flag-waving patriotic movie that was filmed and released as WWII was drawing to a close. The story is about the Filipino people and their fight for freedom from their Japanese oppressors. This is very obvious patriotism with the Japanese portrayed as cowardly murderers and the Americans as noble freedom fighters. John Wayne stars as Colonel Joe Madden, the man selected to help organize the Filipino guerilla movement. His small company wreaks havoc on the Japanese forces in the Phillipines as the war progresses. The young Duke is very good in his role as Madden with Anthony Quinn also excellent as Captain Andres Bonifacio. Also starring are Beulah Bondi, Lawrence Tierney, Vladimir Sokoloff, and Paul Fix. This is a very good movie that shows a part of the war many people do not know about. Check this one out to see an exciting, well-told, adventure story. Classic Duke! | |
| Back to Bataan: The Last of the | |
| With the end of the Second World War close at hand, Hollywood was taking no chances as it continued to churn out patriotic, flag-waving war movies, most of which featured John Wayne. In BACK TO BATAAN, director Edward Dmytryk does showcase Wayne along with Anthony Quinn as both pay homage to the inspired loyalty of the Philipino men and women who risked their lives to aid the Americans against the Japanese. BACK TO BATAAN is an old-fashioned war film, of the kind that has not been filmed since then. In addition to the heroics of the American leads, it features a sterling cast of slanty-eyed Japanese villains to boo and hiss and stalwart Filipinos to cheer. Phillip Ahn and Richard Loo (both ethnic Chinese) play moustache-twirling Japanese officers who speak fluent if not accented English as they spin out their lines of threats and entreaties backed by more threats. Vladimir Sokoloff, a veteran of scores of films, here plays an unassuming school principal who refuses to haul down the American flag when ordered to do so. He is hanged for that, but his body, cleverly draped by the Stars & Stripes, is an unabashed symbol of solidarity between American and Philipino. Ducky Louie, as the schoolboy Maximo, is equally heroic as one who could not spell 'liberty' correctly but whose death proved that he full well understood its meaning. What BACK TO BATAAN shows is Hollywood's contemporary paen to America that the patriotism that is nowadays derided as colonialistic and left-wing jingoistic was then seen as a necessary adjunct to a war that had the bad guys on one side and us on the other. |
