Customer Reviews

Bataan

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As wartime propaganda, "Bataan" is brilliant--watching it, you may be filled with a seething hostility toward the Japanese that hasn't been felt since Reagan's 1980s. But what's more remarkable is that this gritty, often racist Robert Taylor vehicle is pretty solid as a movie, too. Filmed on an atmospheric soundstage that doubles for the jungle, its moody production practically oozes menace and rivals the Universal "monster movies" of the 1930s. (Watch it at night with the lights off for the full effect.) Often dubbed a remake of John Ford's "The Lost Patrol," "Bataan" has as much in common with any number of last-stand movies . . . as well as later slashfests like "Friday, the 13th," where each character's inevitable demise is more gruesome than the last. In that respect, "Bataan" is again remarkable, as the violence is graphic and shocking, particularly for the period in which the film was made. The cast of many familiar faces, including Desi Arnez, Barry Nelson, Lloyd Nolan, and Robert Walker, also deliver the emotional goods, keeping us caring about what happens next to these doomed men, a quality more recent films generally lack. If you're expecting the technoglitz excess of "Black Hawk Down," you'll probably be disappointed by "Bataan." But if you want to see a Hollywood depiction of war as a silvery nightmare, this may well be the one movie to watch.

Hollywood's early homage to the American fighting man in the Pacific, `the shadowy heroes history will never forget', BATAAN (1943) celebrates tenacious resolve and defiance in defeat. Robert Taylor stars as Sgt. Bill Dane, the leader of a small squad - about thirteen men - ordered to destroy a bridge and hold a crossing against an irresistible wave of Japanese soldiers. The fate of the squadron is announced early on in the movie; among the opening credits is a title card telling us that the movie is "Reverently dedicated to the fallen dead." The movie opens with Allied force retreating to Corregidor as a result of an overwhelming landing of Japanese forces in January, 1942. Sgt. Dane and his small squad are ordered to destroy a bridge and delay any force trying to cross over and/or repair the bridge.
The squad is diverse - there's a flyboy lieutenant (George Murphy), a callow young sailor (Robert Walker in his first credited screen appearance), a Filipino (Roque Espiritu), a Latino (Desi Arnaz) and an African-American (Kenneth Spencer). It might be faulty history, but it's a convenient teaming when the message is we're all in this together. The fight sequences were about as realistic as any shown up to that time - men are decapitated (up to the point of sword striking neck, that is), enemy soldiers are strangled, soldiers continue to bludgeon the fallen dead. Tame by today's standards, I imagine the fight sequences affected its audience much the same way the opening scene in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN shook more modern audiences. The lulls between the battle are a bit more familiar - the Spencer character hums "St. James Infirmary" and is learning to be a preacher back home. The Arnaz character bops to Tommy Dorsey on the battery powered radio. There's a sub-plot involving some past troubles between Sgt. Dane and Cpl Barney Todd (Lloyd Nolan) that's deftly handled.
Although dated in many ways, I found BATAAN fascinating and entertaining and somewhat of an entry into the mindset of the generation of Americans responding to the first shock of war. Strong recommendation.

Done when it was far from sure we were going to win WW II. This is an extraordinary dramatic portrayal of the "last stand" US and Filipino forces made on Bataan. Of course it is not a docudrama straining for accurarcy, that could come after we won. This was a depiction of a varied group of Americans and Filipinos coming together in a hopeless situation to do as much as they could (remind anyone of Flight 93?). Of course there actually were rear guard actions and delaying actions as the Japanese advanced on Bataan so in a way you could say it does stand for unknown heroic acts by the defenders. Interestingly when units are mentioned in the film they are the real units that fought in the Philippines in '41-'42. I would also recommend "Eve of Saint Mark" which addresses the same issues and has a great performance by Vincent Price but I have never seen a copy offered for sale and am afraid it is a lost gem.

Bataan is one of those films that any fan of WWII films cannot miss. Although it was made after the Allies had started their comeback, the impact of the film is not diminished. The effect of Pearl Harbor was still an open wound. The portrayal of the Japanese as cold-blooded sub-human killers is chilling. As a rallying point for the campaign in the Pacific, it's perfect. Robert Taylor, well-known by this time as a handsome and suave leading man, steps out of his image to play a tough, cynical and thoroughly American hero. The final scene of this film says alot about the American attitude at the time, and about Americans as a national entity. This is a really cool war movie.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Americans then reacted much the same as they did on September 11, 2001, when Saudi terrorists crashed two jet planes into the WTC. Shock was quickly followed by anger, and then to a call for action. By the start of 1942, Hollywood heard this clarion call, and for the next four years dutifully cranked out one patriotic war movie after another. BATAAN was one of the first and the best. Director Tay Garnett boiled the movie down to an us versus them level. On the us side were a number of well-known American actors led by the then megastar Robert Taylor, and capably backed up by LLoyd Nolan, Thomas Mitchell, Desi Arnaz, and Robert Walker. The Japanese were shown as nameless, faceless, buck-toothed, slanty-eyed devils who refused to attack unless possessing numerical superiority. Much of the film plays out as an updated version of the earlier THE LOST PATROL. In this latter film, the good guys (Brits) are picked off one at a time by nameless, faceless, towel-headed Arab cowards who refused to attack unless possessing numerical superiority. In both films, the heroes are led by crusty yet heroic leaders who command a motley group of assorted ethnic types. One by one,the Americans die. With each death, the audience could feel both sadness and anger. This movie shows the horrors of jungle warfare in a way that Hollywood had never approached. Director Garnett kept the audience involved by switching from scenes of gripping combat to vignettes of personal drama. Desi Arnaz plays the ethnic jitterbug who dreams only of returning to his beloved Brooklyn. Robert Walker is the archetypal kid whose greatest fear is that he won't be able to send a letter home to his parents. Probably the most interesting of these subplots was the one involving LLoyd Nolan and Robert Taylor. Little by little the audience learns that Taylor as a military policeman years earlier was in charge of escorting a criminal to prison for execution. There was a train wreck, and the handcuffed prisoner wriggles free. (Sound like Dr. Richard Kimble?) Taylor spends years tracking him down only to find that this very fugitive is one of the Americans under his command. Taylor slyly lets Nolan know that he knows who Nolan is, but before Taylor can arrest him, Nolan is stabbed in the back by one of the cowardly Japs who had been playing dead. Nolan's last words to Taylor are, "For just one second,I thought it was you who stuck the shiv in my back." Taylor, alone, fights on, blasting his heavy machine gun directly into the camera, shouting, "Here I am! I'll never leave."
BATAAN accomplished its goal of getting Americans involved on many levels, not the least of which was to stir up hatred against a clearly recognizable enemy. With the Japanese now our friends, a contemporary viewing leaves the audience trying to see past the dated enemy while still recognizing that every era has its war and each war its recognizable enemy. This BATAAN manages to do as well as Spielberg did sixty years later with SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.

Bataan has to be one of the best war films I have ever seen. Robert Taylor is the sergeant leading a small group of men in the Philippines trying to hold off the Japanese by destroying a bridge that the Japanese keep rebuilding over and over. There's a sense of doom as you watch the film, since there is no way this motley crew of men can hold of the Japanese forever, and it does take on an "And Then There Were None" quality as the men fall one by one throughout the story. But the fighting is tough, brutal, and realistic, and all of the actors play their roles with conviction, with particular praise going to Taylor and Robert Walker. I would highly recommend this film to fans of war and action movies.

This well-acted, tough World War II propaganda movie is an excellent example of the MGM style: Solid production values, some good acting...and a tendency to hit the message out of the ball park, and then hit it out again. And again. The story of a small group of soldiers fighting and dying to buy time for MacArthur to regroup around Bataan was, I suspect, a powerful movie when it came out in 1943. Now, it's a curious mixture of Hollywood theatrics mixed with some genuinely moving moments. At nearly two hours, it also goes on too long. For those who may believe that brave men can survive in propaganda war movies, read no further.

It's early 1942 in the Philippines and Sergeant Bill Dane (Robert Taylor) with a mixed bag of semi-volunteers are given the assignment of blowing up a bridge which would otherwise be a primary crossing point for the invading Japanese army as it races south. They must also set up a defensive position across the chasm to keep the Japanese from rebuilding. Dane is a competent, no-nonsense Army lifer. The only other regular Army men he has is Corporal Jake Finegold (Thomas Mitchell), a wise old hand and long-time friend, and Corporal Barney Todd (Lloyd Nolan), a cynic who may have a history with Dane. The other ten men include an enthusiastic Navy corpsman, an engineer, an air force pilot, a medic and a supply corporal. The story line is simple. As we learn about these men and their histories, the Japanese pick them off one by one. And as they die, the dedication of the remaining men only grows stronger. We're left with the image of a row of graves barely visible as ground fog sweeps among them, with the rifles of the dead men thrust into the ground as headstone markers. Then the movement of Japanese soldiers creeping in for the final attack...with Sergeant Dane, exhausted and wounded, the last remaining man, rising to his feet, clutching his machine gun and blazing away at the charging enemy. "Come on, suckers," he screams, "come and get it! We're still here! We'll always be here!"

The cast is small and gets smaller. Demographically, it matches Hollywood's idea of America. There's an Hispanic, a black, a Jew, a misfit, a young kid, a Philippine scout, a...well, you get the idea. Thomas Mitchell as Corporal Finegold plays his patented role of giving us some of the movie's messages. When early in the movie Dane bemoans how unprofessional his group of soldiers is, Finegold just says, "You can't always tell, sergeant. Some of those kids learn pretty quick and kinda good." Later, when Dane is discouraged and says, "I wonder how long these guys can stand up to this stuff," Corporal Finegold says to Dane (and to the theater goers), "Those kids signed up for this just like you and me. They'll get tired, sure. Things'll get tough, sure. But I don't think they'll put their tails between their legs and run anymore than you would." Robert Walker in his first credited film role plays the very young, gum-chewing corpsman. It's wise to remember that in propaganda movies it can be fatal to start dictating a letter home to your Mom. George Murphy plays the pilot who manages to get his bi-wing aircraft off but is wounded in the process. As with the other men, he chooses to die heroically. Even a conscientious objector who signed on as a non-combat medic winds up throwing grenades. Robert Taylor and Lloyd Nolan are particularly effective.

I couldn't help but admire the professionalism of the movie. Yet knowing the men are going to get picked off, combined with the length of the movie, had me tensing every time someone decided to stand up, write a letter, peer over a sandbag, talk about his life back home or sing a spiritual. The tension is effective for the first hour, but after a while it got to be a strain. The one face-to-face fight towards the end of the movie, when Japanese soldiers camouflaged to look like brush and bushes begin to move toward the remaining men, and the men respond first with machine guns and then with bayonets, was a relief. It also was a brutal look at hand-to-hand combat.

It's hard to beat war propaganda that lets us see average men and women gladly dying for a cause nobler than their own lives. At that level, the movie works. Bataan may be dated, but if you enjoy older war movies you might like this one. The black and white DVD transfer looks very good. There are no significant extras.

I saw this movie when I was about 12 years old. It was one of the first films made shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was designed to anger the American public, and did it ever! In addition to Robert Taylor and George Murphy, also in the cast was Thomas Mitchell and a Cuban guy named Desi Arnez. To me it is a real WWII classic with damned good acting.

"Bataan" provides the viewer with a vivid portrayal of the courageous defense of the Bataan Penninsula from the perspective of front line troops holding out against the advancing Japanese. The circumstances on Bataan were bleak, and this film does an excellent job describing those circumstances, even though it was filmed during the war on a soundstage and before an accurate analysis of the Battle could be made.

That the characters represent an odd assortment of soldiers from various non-combat units only demonstrates the dire circumstances faced by the defending forces. The film also realistically depicts the sickness, hunger and fear experienced by all Bataan defenders.

My only gripe is that the film doesn't showcase any other aspects of the Battle, such as the Death March. Though the opening scene shows US-Filipino troops and refugees moving towards Bataan, nearly the entire film takes place in a jungle alcove overlooking a bridge that must be defended at all costs. I would have prefered an overview of the entire Battle.

Hopefully, a film will be made sometime encompassing all aspects of the Battle of Bataan. Until then, "Bataan" does an excellent job describing the rugged tenacity and frustrations of those who fought on Bataan. Watch this film! The Battle of Bataan must not be forgotten.

"Bataan" came out when I was an impressionable boy of 11 or so. I will always remember the performance of Lloyd Nolan, who exhibits a combined rough, G.I. cynicism and controlled softness towards the young sailor (Walker's outstanding screen debut}. His character also presages the martial arts convention by beating, stabbing and strangling enemy soldiers in a mostly silent sequence that made us kids in the theater hear our own hearts only that much louder. A scene worthy of any director. The sub-interests are expertly suggested, such as the officer @ the nurse having a relationship, the Latino boy nuts about music @ the black private routinely digging the graves. The past between Sgt. Dane @ Pvt. Burns, subtly written, evokes the Army life I knew. The sound stage set is forgotten when one watches the intricately choreographed and energetic action sequences - unmatched for their sense of desperate, savage self defense until Pvt. Ryan. Many military veterans cite "Sands of Iwo Jima" as a motivation for voluteering for military service. Mine was "Bataan", the best combat movie ever.