Bataan (1943 MGM pictures)

[Story]

Dug up the following while doing some script study and while it's an even toss-up on whether this belongs here or in movies, I'll leave that to the Bartenders.

Many folks have never seen, nor heard of, this classic wartime propaganda film notable for three things - the unusually fleshed out portrayal of the personalities in the (then-unheard of) integrated squad of survivors/misfits, the static location of the action (filmed all on one soundstage) and the final scene (where the machinegun keeps firing after the screen fades to black).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataan_(film)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035664/combined

Someone has posted a segment on Youtube ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FvV1sFbLE8 ) and the finale can be found in the first 1.15 of this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3jmef6sffA

Missing from the music video is Dane's rant as the image fades:"Come on, suckers,come and get it! We're still here! We'll always be here!"

Comparing what you watched in the first link with the trailer, it's like they're two different movies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZd_1UJu8Uk

 

[Juanito]

A classic film person like myself. I have seen both and you are right, they are entirely different movies...it's all inn the editing as they say.

 

[fortworthgal]

Very interesting. Early war PTO is an interest of mine and we found "Bataan" on a 2-dvd set with "Back to Bataan."

 

[YETI]

My grandfather was a survivor(barely) of the Bataan death march. A few years ago my uncle dug up copies from a dod official accounting of his experience leading up to the surrender to the Japanese and during his ordeal afterward. It was all in his own words. Man, I wish he was alive when I was born to hear his stories.

 

[Story]

Those who have seen the movie will recognize the inspiration for the character of LT Steve Bentley. The story, more or less as frequently told -

Unique Stories Of WWII
By Bart Anderson

It was April 1942 when, after a week of bad weather, pilots of the American famed Flying Tigers of the China Air Force could get off the ground. The operation telephones at an airfield at Kienow began to ring off the hook. Chinese jungle aircraft spotters reported a single plane flying low toward the Kienow airfield. The Americans were puzzled. The Japanese never sent out a single plane for a raid, but the plane was flying from enemy territory.
Taking no chances, the American flight leader ordered six Warhawk P-40s into the air. The unknown plane was now only thirty miles east. About ten miles from the Kienow airfield, two Americans spotted the mystery plane zipping along only two hundred feet above the ground. When the Americans got close enough they were shocked, as one of the P-40 pilot radioed:
“That’s an American insignia, it’s a P-40.” The plane had been literally shot to pieces. They could make out the pilot behind the shattered glass of the windshield. His face was a mask of blood. But the P-40 was holding a steady course.
Only later would the American pilots at Kienow learn that the mysterious pilot was “Corn” Sherill. After the fall of the Philippines, “Corn” Sherill and eleven mechanics cannibalized a few aircraft to make one plane fly. “Corn” would fly one last mission and hit the enemy where it would do the most good.
“Corn” would fly 250 miles, with the extra fuel tanks and hit the Japanese at Formosa. There was no real defense there, for it was too far into enemy ground. The lone American zoomed in and fired burst after burst against the juicy targets. Soon, enemy plane after plane were burning and exploding.
Within minutes, Japanese Zero, buzzing around him like angry bees poured scores of rounds into “Corn’s” already battered plane.
Then the P-40 zipped up into the clouds and set a course for Kienow. Badly wounded, “Corn” was flying by the seat of his pants. When the American Flying Tigers found him, “Corn” was dead. He had died somewhere between Formosa and Kienow. The plane was flying, perhaps, by bracing the stick between his knees, the P-40 continued on course, but flown by a dead man, a phantom pilot.
As the rest of the scrambled Flying Tigers were at the side of the dead pilot and crippled P-40, the plane plunged to the ground and exploded.

And the truth -

Of course it was all a hoax--one of those yarns that get published in wartime. General Scott evidently once said as much, according to Dave Kight on an online discussion board. Dave told about a meeting featuring the general as a speaker: "during the question and answer part someone asked him about this very story of the Mindanao P-40. He laughed and said he and another Flying Tiger pilot made it up as a lark during the war. They later admitted it was a joke but the thing refused to die. He said they were stunned to see the thing in print in an issue of Air Classics and if they had any idea that it would be still around 40 some odd yrs. later (at the time) they wouldn't have done it. I kid you not."

http://www.warbirdforum.com/phantom.htm

 

[Bourbon Guy]

None of you have the first inkling of a clue.

You all get your history from Hollywood. Talk to your fathers. Talk to your grandfathers. They know. They were there. The rest is just BS.

 

[MPicciotto]

None of you have the first inkling of a clue.

You all get your history from Hollywood. Talk to your fathers. Talk to your grandfathers. They know. They were there. The rest is just BS.

I think we do have a clue! The study of war-time films and how they relate to the real events is a sub-study of WW2. Both my grandfathers and a great uncle were in the war. I've heard stories directly or indirectly from all of them. YETI speaks of his grandfather and uncovering the transcripts of his experience. But you tell him he has no clue!?!?

Matt

 

[cco23i]

None of you have the first inkling of a clue.

You all get your history from Hollywood. Talk to your fathers. Talk to your grandfathers. They know. They were there. The rest is just BS.

??????? O.K what brought that on? I grew up with a fellow who was captured on Bataan and worked at the Toyota plant during the war. Before you jump to conclusions I suggest you sit back and think about what you are about to write.

Scott

 

[Babydoll]

My grandfather was a survivor(barely) of the Bataan death march. A few years ago my uncle dug up copies from a dod official accounting of his experience leading up to the surrender to the Japanese and during his ordeal afterward. It was all in his own words. Man, I wish he was alive when I was born to hear his stories.

My grandpa was a survivor of Bataan as well. I have a copy of the manuscript he wrote about what he went through while he was at Cabanatuan. I've ready the first couple of chapters, but it broke my heart too much to finish reading it.

 

[Widebrim]

My father, who served in the PTO (U.S. Army), passed on much of his experiences to me, and would sometimes comment on the lack of realism in the older films (he approved of some "later" efforts). However, I still love watching war films actually made during the war, including Bataan. As part of understanding WWII, it is necessary to know how the studios presented the war to the public (and how said public reacted to it). And for that reason, films like Bataan, Back to Bataan, Sahara, Casablanca and others made during the war are often worth the time to watch them. (I'm not sure about A Yank in Libya, though.:eusa_doh: )

 

[Story]

??????? O.K what brought that on?

Someone obviously got fustrated licking the bottom of his Bourbon bottle.

Meanwhile, back at the topic -

Hollywood: the Propaganda Machine of US in WWII
http://blog.javidiani.com/2008/03/hollywood-propaganda-machine-of-us-in.html

One of the most important weapons that all major countries involved in Second World War used was propaganda, and perhaps the most suitable medium for it was cinema, mainly due to its visual appeal. Not long after Pearl Harbor Roosevelt’s government established the Office of War Information, which was acted as a liaison between Hollywood and government in homogenizing the act of propaganda. Cinema of the World War II in the United States operated certainly on much higher level than simple escapist solution. It touched a subconscious level of an audience, which were in thirst of information about a war that mostly took place away from the homeland.

 

[dr greg]

Back fire

Then again of course you have utter rubbish churned out as propaganda such as that dreadful blot on Errol Flynn's career, Objective Burma, which completely ignored the fact that Burma was primarily a
British/Indian theatre, and made it look like a few Yanks saved the day there.
The resultant uproar from Commonwealth troops wherever it was shown caused much inter-Allied bitterness and I think it had to be withdrawn and not shown again til well after the war.
P.S. I did mean his film career, Flynn himself saw the war as none of his business and stayed well out of it, unlike many other actors who signed up...this fact also contributed to the film's bad reputation I believe.

 

[Widebrim]

Then again of course you have utter rubbish churned out as propaganda such as that dreadful blot on Errol Flynn's career, Objective Burma, which completely ignored the fact that Burma was primarily a
British/Indian theatre, and made it look like a few Yanks saved the day there.
The resultant uproar from Commonwealth troops wherever it was shown caused much inter-Allied bitterness and I think it had to be withdrawn and not shown again til well after the war.
P.S. I did mean his film career, Flynn himself saw the war as none of his business and stayed well out of it, unlike many other actors who signed up...this fact also contributed to the film's bad reputation I believe.

I have read many times that Flynn did attempt to sign up for military duty, but was turned down due to malaria which he contracted many years earlier.

 

[Story]

From Wikipedia -

In 1980, author Charles Higham published a controversial biography, Errol Flynn: The Untold Story, in which he alleged that Flynn was a fascist sympathizer who spied for the Nazis before and during World War II.[ He was previously accused of sympathizing with Adolf Hitler based on his association with Dr Hermann Erben, an Austrian who served in the German military intelligence. Declassified files held by the CIA show that, in an intercepted letter in September 1933, Flynn wrote to Erben: "A slimy Jew is trying to cheat me . . . I do wish we could bring Hitler over here to teach these Isaacs a thing or two. The bastards have absolutely no business probity or honor whatsoever."

 

[dr greg]

In Like

An old man's memory ain't what it used to be, but I seem to recall that in his autobiography, he rationalised his avoidance by saying that no-one or country had done anything much for him so he didn't feel he owed allegiance to any particular side in the conflict..or words to that effect.
Mind you John Wayne didn't sign up either, and apparently his POV was that he was 'of more use' pretending to be a soldier in morale-boosting movies, which may be true if you look at the big picture.

 

[Widebrim]

From Wikipedia -

In 1980, author Charles Higham published a controversial biography, Errol Flynn: The Untold Story, in which he alleged that Flynn was a fascist sympathizer who spied for the Nazis before and during World War II.[ He was previously accused of sympathizing with Adolf Hitler based on his association with Dr Hermann Erben, an Austrian who served in the German military intelligence. Declassified files held by the CIA show that, in an intercepted letter in September 1933, Flynn wrote to Erben: "A slimy Jew is trying to cheat me . . . I do wish we could bring Hitler over here to teach these Isaacs a thing or two. The bastards have absolutely no business probity or honor whatsoever."

Higham's "biography" has been thoroughly discredited. And why would Flynn make a reference to Hitler who, in 1933, had not yet started his war on the Jews?

 

[Martinis at 8]

Interested in Bataan and Aftermath?

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