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PT 109 (1963) - A Night at the Movies
Editorial Reviews
Dramatization of President John F. Kennedy's WWII experiences as a young naval lieutenant during which he captained a PT boat, took it to battle and had it cut in two by a Japanese destroyer. He and the surviving crew members had to make their way to safety and signal the Navy for rescue. This Night At The Movies also includes Robert McKimson's barnyard epic, "Banty Raids," starring Foghorn Leghorn, and vintage 1963 newsreels.
Product details
- Package Dimensions : 8.5 x 5.9 x 2.2 inches; 1.4 Pounds
- Run time : 2 hours and 39 minutes
- Date First Available : May 2, 2007
- Actors : Cliff Robertson, Ty Hardin, James Gregory, Robert Culp
- Studio : Warner Home Video
- ASIN : B000Q6E1CQ
- Customer Reviews:
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Top reviews from the United States
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Coming back to it as an adult I had lost some of my youngster romanticism and unfortunately become more critical. This is a pretty good movie. For a period Hollywood movie it does a reasonable job of being historically ... close. So bottom line first, there is at least one good viewing here and something you may want to bring back for patriotic holidays or as an inspiration for the kids. Rate this as fairly light WWII movie making but with a better than average veneer of facts.
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+++++If you do not know the story of PT109: Spoiler Alerts+++
Cliff Robertson as future president and commander of PT108 John F Kennedy was handpicked by the president for the role. Pictures of Kennedy from his Navy days are fairly close to Robertson. Acting however is uneven. We get no real sense of the man. Nothing of the marked Boston accent and little of the hot shot jockey that was typical of the Pt skippers. It was very interesting to note that the opening scene is JFK saying that strings had been pulled to get him into PTs. What was not told, and not widely known was that the young Navy Officer was deeply in love with a German woman and that relationship could have hurt the Navy man's career and absolutely would have hurt the Kennedy family future political plans. Ultimately there is little to distinguish the acting or to use it as a way to understand the man. Robertson gives us a vaguely smiling warrior but not much else.
Elsewhere in the cast we have Robert Culp, playing Robert Culp, that is the easy going nice guy he pretty much always played. Looking closer you will see a very young Robert Blake as trouble enlisted man Charles 'Bucky' Harris. If you look even harder and don't blink, the uncredited role of Helmsman on the Japanese Destroyer is Star Ship Enterprise Helmsman George Tekai.
This being a war movie part of the requirement for the script is some kind of violence every few minutes. I rather liked the one long bombing raid, except that the Japanese aircraft involved seemed to have unlimited ability to make close in bombing runs and still have something left. Wikipedia suggests that this attack was an attack by 18 Japanese planes that occurred on 1 August 1943. JFK did command missions that helped to recover a Marine unit from a bad spot. That action would come after his heroic service to his crew in the aftermath of losing PT109. This is a minor point, but serving to emphasize the apparent need for action scenes.
Ultimately this movie could be more uplifting. What Kennedy achieved in these six days was heroic. He kept his crew together, loosing no one after the initial collision. He routinely placed himself in the front of danger and worked (swam) harder to insure that the badly burned crew members were not to be left behind. He was himself injured but still placed the duties of command first.
The movie makes it very unclear how long the Crew was held together and brought to safety by the leadership and example of Kennedy. In movie time it was long enough for uniforms to become tattered but not so long as to make haircuts or beards get shaggy. Long enough to have a fair number of marks made into a board the men kept. In fact the men were ship wrecked for about 6 days.
I like this story. I mostly liked this movie. Ultimately is was a little flat and shallow. Hollywood movies of this time were famously shallow. Jack Warner intended PT 109 to be a gift for a new president. More of that spirit should have made it to the screen.
Fortunately. I found the movie I video taped as broadcast on AMC in the middle 80's. I recorded it, and archived it with other movies that were fun to watch. Somewhere around 2013, I was found it again in my video cabinet and got reintroduced to the real story of the drama of the forging of a president of the USA. This time, I got it, what had been ordained in time immortal. I know the movie never was the smash hit that Jack Warner had in mind, but in, my opinion, maybe the movie going audience wasn't mature enough to appreciate what our armed forces faced and suffered. Maybe they couldn't get their minds around the tremendous cost paid by the American Servicemen for these freedoms we how hold so loosely. I'm glad the American men and women, armed with the spirit of the Armies of God, lead by David, persevered and wrenched these freedoms that we hold so loosely from hands that would have been terrible taskmasters. Their experiences of the war-fighters were difficult for them to openly discuss because none of them were prepared for the horrors of they experienced.
About 3 months ago, I decided to order the DVD. The copy I had was suffering from the advances in technology and the ravages of time on old video tape. My copy was, in places, was quite like watching events through a Dakota Snow Storm. I have watched the DVD many times since we received it, and relive the experience each time I see it. It's been said, this period of Mr Kennedy's life was the Crucible that forged hiim to make him as strong and resilient as steel. God was at work growing up an immature inexperienced untried young man into the 'man of the hour' who had been ordained to be the leader of the American Democracy.
Don't hesitate to buy the movie. Sure it was never a box-office hit, as Jack Warner had though it would be,but the real story is worth watching, again and again.
It very interesting may not be exactly as what happened but it gives to a good idea of what did. It was
Top reviews from other countries
Es un clásico, enmarcada en las islas del Pacífico, se basa en un hecho real, ocurrido a John F Kennedy durante la segunda guerra mundial en lucha contra los japoneses. La pelicula, de 1963, es muy entretenida, el color es magnifico y el sonido es mas que aceptable, es un dolby 2.0.
Por este precio, ni pensarselo. De cabeza.

