1/16/2014

Back to Bataan (1945) - Wayne in the Pacific



One exciting, and a little strange, old poster for Edward Dmytryk's Back to Bataan

QUICK REVIEW:

Back to Bataan is about the heroic resistance fight of the Philippines together with the Americans against the imperialist Japanese in the middle years of WWII. 
The film has propagandistic overtones, - as could be expected, - because it was a contemporary war depiction made and released during the biggest war effort the US had ever participated in, - a war effort that was enormously heavy in human and economic losses, - but there still is at least one Japanese in the film who is not entirely vicious.

John Wayne in the Pacific in Back to Bataan

Anthony Quinn (La Strada (1954)) seems miscast in this film, but John Wayne (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)) is rock-solid as the heroic American colonel. Bataan is a little quaint as a war film, but has some fascinating scenes.
Wayne, who went on to be one of Hollywood's most prominent Republicans, was surprised and dismayed to learn during the production of this film that both its Canadian-born director Edward Dmytryk (The Caine Mutiny (1954)) and screenwriter Ben Barzman (The Heroes of Telemark (1965)) (who was later blacklisted in the years of McCarthyism's Red Scare) were more or less communists.


Watch the hyperbolic original trailer right here

Budget: Unknown
Box office: 2.4 mil. $
= Unknown

You are welcome to add points or opinions on Back to Bataan
Do you know any American WWII-films made during the war that are recommendable?

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