Customer Reviews

Back to Bataan

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.
Anthony Quinn is also excellent as Captain Bonifacio, the leader of the Filipino guerillas. Both Wayne and Quinn are at their most handsome and heroic, and make a fine cinematic pairing.

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.
Edward Dmytryk's direction is well paced, and Max Steiner's "stock music" was used, along with an original score by Roy Webb.

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.
May we never forget the souls who bravely fought for freedom and suffered so much in Bataan.

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!

B2B was an okay war picture, with action bookending a smaller-scale, human story of loss and pride and redemption.

After a couple of brief but quite cool battle sequences, the movie settles in to its main plot of John Wayne training Philippinos in the art of guerilla warfare against their conquerors, so that the forces of Truth, Justice and the American Way may get `Back to Bataan.' His second-in-command, Anthony Quinn, struggles to come to grips with his heritage of leadership. And Quinn's on-again-off-again love, also the mouthpiece of the Japanese, must decide where her true loyalties lie.

There are moving segments throughout the film, but overall it seemed a tad too limited, too mechanical, often shot on claustrophobic studio sets. The movie closes with the flag-waving return of our boys, comprised largely of stock footage. Some of it is not bad stuff, but it was a slight disappointment.

The film was very good in showing the brutality of the Japanese soldiers toward those they conquered at that time, and the brainwashing that ensued. A schoolyard hanging of the principal when he won't raise the flag of the rising sun is particularly thought-provoking. As are another character's dying words, regretful that he never learned enough about `liberty,' meaning in the grammatical sense; the reply as he breathes his last is: "Who ever learned it so well?"

And The Duke is obviously his same charismatic self, as in Flying Leathernecks or Sands of Iwo Jima or They Were Expendable. Or any other Duke movie, for that matter. Yet I found myself wanting... more. I don't really pop in a rah-rah wartime actioner for long sections of mostly dialogue.

Wake Island was a movie that I thought held similarly high potential and just did not go far enough. B2B reminded me somewhat of that one.

For more, better action in WW2, try plain old `Bataan' instead.

P.S. The final line is classic Duke.

This is the kind of classic John Wayne movie that you think of when you think of the Duke and WWII. I have just about every JW DVD made after Stagecoach that is available and have been waiting for this to come out for some time. The story begins around the fall of Bataan and Corrigador in 1942 and ends with the American return to Letye in 1944. In between the Duke organizes restistance to the Japanese occupation. Wayne's acting is excellent and so is that of Anthony Quinn. The story and soundtrack are very good and the action is pretty intense for its time. If you like Wayne and haven't seen this movie, buy it now. I would put it up with Sands of Iwo Jima, Operation Pacific, They Were Expendable and In Harms Way as one of my favorite JW WWII movies.

This is an excellent film about Filipino guerillas fighting the Japanese during W.W.II. A highlight of this film is the black and white photography of realistic combat scenes filmed by cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca and directed by Edward Dmytryk. These were exciting and ahead of their time. John Wayne as Colonel Joe Madden and Anthony Quinn as Captain Andres Bonifacio give inspirational performances. The cast also included Beulah Bondi, Richard Loo, Lawrence Tierney, Paul Fix and Vladimir Sokoloff. This is one of my favorite war films of the period.

This is an excellent film about Filipino guerillas fighting the Japanese during W.W.II. A highlight of this film is the black and white photography of realistic combat scenes filmed by cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca and directed by Edward Dmytryk. These were exciting and ahead of their time. John Wayne as Colonel Joe Madden and Anthony Quinn as Captain Andres Bonifacio give inspirational performances. The cast also included Beulah Bondi, Richard Loo, Lawrence Tierney, Paul Fix and Vladimir Sokoloff. This is one of my favorite war films of the period.

"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.

A film in good black & white photography, much better than the electronic coloured version as jungle is more real and dramatic in the original version. I think this movie is little polished, as it seems WW II hadn't still finished when was made. So, we see an enormous Philippine and USA patriotism and a presentation of the Japanese as monsters, as usual by these times. Summing up, this is the story of the fight of Filipino guerrillas against the Japanese invaders, commanded by Colonel Jackson, an USA military played by John Wayne.
It seems the Japanese attempted to convince natives they all were "Asiatics" united together against "White Race", the topics of these moments, but their brutality and pretended superiority showed clearly the truth.
Curiously, Spaniards are remembered also as undesirable conquerors of the Philippines, as these islands received his name in honor to Felipe II, the emperor of Spain at times of the discovery.
But in spite all that, side by side with John Wayne, there are Anthony Quinn and many Philippine people with Spanish names, fighting together. I think is truly American the personage of the energical woman,mature school teacher.
Effectively, during Spanish domination there was much race mixture and Christianity was spread mostly by friars of St. Dominic Order. By these times many Spanish friars still remained in the Pacific area of war and were murdered by Japanese troops, as I remember to have read in old Spanish newspapers my fathers conserved.
Madrid was a nest of spies during WW II and Japan had also a consulate, but Franco didn't like nor understood Japanese. He had enough with Hitler.
Scenes of fights are the best here, John Wayne being at his best moment, very credible although logically this movie can't compare in quality with actual war movies and special effects, but still so is good and must of all sounds very real, as many actors were real soldiers.

john wayne portrays colonel madden who is in charge of a regiment of filipino scouts on bataan in the early days of world war two--he is sent into the countryside to recruit and train native resistance fighters---this movie shows the death march from bataan--anthony quinn portrays the grandson of a great filopino hero --this movie is a tribute to the courage and sacrifice of the filopino people and their absolute refusal to surrender to japan--this movie is very patriotic and symbolic--it covers the period from the japanese victory at bataan to the american landings at leyte gulf---john wayne wins the war again

If you like WW 2 films made during WW2, "Back to Bataan" is for you. It stars John Wayne and Anthony Quinn, was directed by Edward Dmytryk, and tells the story of the Pilipino resistance to the Japanese invasion from 1942 to 1945.

John Wayne (1907-1979) was a major box office draw at the time, having made his breakout with "Stagecoach" (1939) and then a series of war films in 1942 including "Flying Tigers", "Pittsburgh", and "Reap the Wild Wind." He followed them with "The Fighting Seabees" (1944), and "They Were Expendable" (1945) - all of which did well at the box office. He was nominated for Best Actor for "Sands of Iwo Jima" (1949) and eventually won for "True Grit" (1969). He plays an American Colonel who stays behind after MacArthur retreated to Australia.

Anthony Quinn (1915-2001) plays a Pilipino Captain. In 1945 he was still a supporting player although he had been in more than 20 films and had done well in "The Ox Bow Incident" (1943) as a Mexican, "They Died with Their Boots On" (1941) as an Indian, and "Blood and Sand" (1941) as a Spaniard. His big break wouldn't come until 1952 opposite Marlon Brando in "Viva Zapata". Quinn, of course, left us a great legacy of more than 100 roles, with films like "Zorba the Greek" (1961), "Lust for Life" (1956), and "Wild is the Wind" (1957). He was nominated for an Oscar 4 times, winning twice for Best Supporting Actor.

A good supporting cast includes Beulah Bondi, Richard Loo, Philip Ahn, Vladimir Sokoloff, and Paul Fix.

The marvelous Beulah Bondi (1888-1981) was nominated twice for Best Supporting Actress ("Of Human Hearts" in 1938 and "The Gorgeous Hussy" in 1936) and won an Emmy in 1977 for an appearance on "The Waltons". She is best remembered as Jimmy Stewart's mother in films like "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939) and "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946), but I remember her best as Granny in "So Dear to My Heart" (1948).

You'll know Richard Loo's (1903-1982) face even if you don't recall his name. He's best remembered as a Shaolin Monk from TV's "Kung Fu" and as Thai billionaire Hai Fat from "The Man with the Golden Gun" (1974). Loo was Hawaiian with Chinese ancestry, but he had a busy career playing Japanese and other Asians in more than 100 films.

Philip Ahn (1905-78) played Master Kan on the "Kung Fu" series. He was Korean but played a Japanese Major in this film. Ahn appeared in more than 100 films before transitioning to TV in the 60s.

Paul Fix (1901-83) played in more than 200 films, many of them westerns, starting in the silent film era. He gave us such memorable roles as old man Maxwell in "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" (1973), and Joan Crawford's confidant Eddie in "Johnny Guitar" (1954). He was an acting coach for John Wayne and played with Wayne in "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" (1949), "The Fighting Kentuckian" (1949), "Big Jim McLain" (1952), "Hondo" (1953)" and El Dorado" (1967). He's best remembered for his role as the Marshall in Sam Peckinpah's TV series "The Rifleman" (1958-65).

Vladimir Sokoloff (1889-1962) has a brief role as a school principal. Sokoloff was a terrific character actor and stole almost every scene he was in over 100+ films from 1926 to 1962. I remember him best as the village leader from "The Magnificent Seven" (1960), one of his last films.

Director Edward Dmytryk (1908-1999) was part of the Hollywood 10, a group of blacklisted film makers imprisoned during the McCarthy era. Dmytryk was nominated for an Oscar for "Crossfire" (1947) and won at Cannes. He was twice nominated for a DGA award - "the Young Lions" (1958) and "The Caine Mutiny" (1954). Among the 50+ films he directed were "The Left Hand of God" (1955), and "The Carpetbaggers" (1964).

FWIW - The film's writer Ben Barzman (1910-89) was also blacklisted. Given Wayne's politics, this caused some friction on the set. Wayne called them "lefties" and was sometimes openly hostile.

Bataan was a popular film subject and in addition to this film we have "Bataan" (1943), "So Proudly we Hail" (1943), "Cry Havoc" (1943) and "They Were Expendable" (1945).

The film starts and ends in a semi-documentary style and switches to a standard war film in between, chronicling the activities of Pilipino resistance fighters from 1942 to 1945. The action is good and the black and white photography is crisp. Some of the scenes are obviously shot on a stage, but overall they give an impression of being shot on location. War footage is blended well. John Wayne fans will enjoy how many stunts the actor actually performs himself, and for Anthony Quinn fans, this is his biggest role to date.

War films were plentiful in 1945, but the top grossing films were "Mon and Dad", "The Bells of St. Mary's", "Leave Her to Heaven", "Spellbound", "The Dolly Sisters", "Weekend at the Waldorf", etc. The only war film to show up in the top 15 was "A Bell for Adano". The big Oscar winner was "The Lost Weekend" (Director, Picture, Actor). Notable war films released that year included Jimmy Cagney's "Blood on the Sun", Errol Flynn's "Objective Burma", John Garfield's "Pride of the Marines", Burgess Meredith's "The Story of GI Joe", Dana Andrew's "A Walk in the Sun", and John Wayne's "They Were Expendable".

Fans of the Duke and World War 2 films will want to see this film.