Bataan (1943) is a war film about the defense of the Bataan Peninsula at the start of World War II. It was made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, directed by Tay Garnett and produced by Irving Starr, with Dore Schary as executive producer. It starred Robert Taylor, Lloyd Nolan, Thomas Mitchell and Robert Walker.
Historical background
The Battle of Bataan followed the Japanese December, 1941 invasion of the Philippines and lasted from January 1 to April 9, 1942. The American and Filipino forces retreated from Manila to the nearby, mountainous Bataan peninsula for a desperate last stand, hoping for a relief force. However, the Allies were being driven back in all areas of the Pacific theater and none could be sent. After three months of stubborn resistance, the starving and malaria-ridden defenders surrendered and were forced to undertake the infamous Bataan Death March.
Plot
The US Army is conducting a fighting retreat. A high bridge spans a ravine on the Bataan peninsula. After the army and some civilians cross, a group of thirteen hastily-assembled volunteers from different units is assigned to blow it up and delay Japanese rebuilding efforts as long as possible. The soldiers are a mixed lot, including a Mexican-American California National Guardsman in the Tank Corps (Desi Arnaz), a black demolitions expert (Kenneth Spencer), a conscientious objector in the Medical Corps (Phillip Terry), an engineer (Barry Nelson), a Philippine Scout (J. Alex Havier), a cook (Tom Dugan), and a naive young sailor (Robert Walker). Sergeant Bill Dane (Robert Taylor) and Corporal Jake Feingold (Thomas Mitchell) are regular infantry, while Corporal Barney Todd (Lloyd Nolan) claims to be a signalman. However, Dane suspects him of being a pre-war acquaintance, a soldier accused of murder who had escaped while being guarded by then-military policeman Dane.
They dig in on a hillside and blow up the bridge, but their commander, cavalry Captain Henry Lassiter (Lee Bowman), is killed by a sniper, leaving Dane in charge. One by one, the defenders are killed, with one succumbing to malaria.
Army Air Corps pilot Lieutenant Steve Bentley (played by future Senator George Murphy) and his Filipino mechanic, Corporal Juan Katigbak (Roque Espiritu), work frantically to repair an airplane. They succeed, but Bentley is mortally wounded. He has them load explosives aboard, takes off and deliberately crashes his plane into the bridge's foundation.
The last few soldiers repel a massive frontal assault. Two more are killed by Japanese soldiers who had feigned being dead, leaving only Sergeant Dane. Dane stoically digs his own marked grave beside those of his fallen comrades, waits in it, and fires at the onrushing enemy as the final credits roll.
Production
The presence of a racially integrated fighting force prevented the film's showing in the United States' South.
Scenes from the 1934 RKO film The Lost Patrol, directed by John Ford, were reused in this film.
Reception
According to one historian, the film "successfully made white viewers aware... of the inherent sadism in the American lynching ritual". By the 1940s publicans were able to mass-distribute photographs taken of hanged men, so there was a "[rewriting of] the respective relations of the black and the Asian to the white norm, as the film adjusted to a wartime context [which raised questions of integration]."[1]
See also
References
- ^ Locke, Brian (Spring 2008). "Strange Fruit: White, Black, and Asian in the World War II Combat Film "Bataan"". Journal of Popular Film and Television (Heldref Publications) 36 (1): 9-20. ISSN 0195-6051.
External links
