After the Fall of Bataan...

"Back to Bataan" is a ripped-from-the-headlines drama produced as World War II was drawing to a close. It captures the fighting in the Philippines during the brutal Japanese occupation with all the immediacy of a bitter conflict still in progress. It is well-cast with John Wayne and a young Anthony Quinn, blessed with good direction and crisp black and white cinematography, and holds up well more than a half century on.

A prologue features the liberation of the Cabatuan POW camp in 1944 by U.S. Army Rangers and the Filipine resistance. It includes cameos by some of the real liberated prisoners and sets the context for the movie to follow as based on actual events.

The story opens with the pending defeat of U.S. and Filipino forces defending the Bataan Peninsula outside Manila against the Japanese Army in early 1942. An American Colonel named Madden, played by John Wayne, is plucked from the Peninsula and dispatched into the jungles to organize a resistance movement against a promised day of liberation. Madden sets about organizing those former soldiers and interested volunteers he can find. He immediately comes into contact with the brutality of the Japanese Army, as they execute a popular Filipino school principal who refuses to haul down the American flag in a small village. The villagers, including the school children, become valuable allies of Madden's small force.

Madden's small force frees a Filipino Army Captain, played by Anthony Quinn, from the horrors of the Bataan death march in hopes he will serve as a leader of the Filipino resistance. The young Captain, discouraged by defeat and demoralized by the apparent defection of his girlfriend to the Japanese, seems to have declared his own truce. One of the main themes of the movie will be COL Madden's patient effort to make the young captain understand the value of his leadership to the resistance.

Madden's small group prepares for the U.S. return to the Philippines, and for a final confrontation with the sadistic local Japanese Commander. Along the way, various characters will be challenged to do the right thing against the odds. The heroic sacrifices of the Filipino people in the face of privations and Japanese retaliation are highlighted.

The movie paints black and white portraits of the Japanese as cynical murderers and the Americans and Filipinos as virtuous heroes. Those depictions and the voice-overs at the beginning and end of the movie reflect the fact that the U.S. and Japan were in a fight to the death, in a situation where moral distancing would look absurd. The action sequences are surprisingly realistic, if without the special effects possible in today's movies. The acting by Wayne and Quinn is solid, understated, and consistent with their roles as military officers.

This movie is highly recommended as a realistic and thrilling account of the role played by the Filipino resistance in the liberation of the Philippines from Japanese occupation.

dvd review

Excellent John Wayne movie from the 1940's. Received dvd in super condition and received quickly.

Old War

One of John Wayne's better older war movies, great acting my John Wayne and Anthony Quinn.