American Guerrilla in the Philippines (1950)

Director:

Fritz Lang

Writers:

Lamar Trotti (screenplay)
Ira Wolfert (novel)

Release Date:

8 November 1950 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | War

Tagline:

One of the great adventures to come out of the Pacific!

Plot:

American soldiers stranded in the Philippines after the Japanese invasion form guerrilla bands to fight back.

Plot Keywords:

Country Name In Title | Based On Novel

Cast

Tyrone Power	...	Ensign Chuck Palmer
Micheline Presle	...	Jeanne Martinez (as Micheline Prelle)
Tom Ewell	...	Jim Mitchell
Robert Patten	...	Lovejoy (as Bob Patten)
Tommy Cook	...	Miguel
Juan Torena	...	Juan Martinez
Jack Elam	...	The Speaker
Robert Barrat	...	Gen. Douglas MacArthur

Also Known As:

I Shall Return (UK)

Runtime:

105 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

UK:U | West Germany:0 (f) (re-rating) | West Germany:16 (nf) (original rating) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved (certificate #14542)

Filming Locations:

Philippines

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

The bamboo dance in the movie is known as the Tinikling dance. It involves two people hitting bamboo poles on the ground and against each other in coordination with one or more dancers who step over and in between the poles in a dance. It is a Philippine traditional national dance that is still performed to this day at Fiesta.

Goofs:

Factual errors: A US Naval Ensign is not the same rank as a major in the US Army.

Movie Connections:

Edited into All This and World War II (1976)

Soundtrack:

Chattanooga Choo-Choo

Even Fritz Lang has to eat.

Not a bad movie, really. Colorful, exotic locations, educational, some interesting combat scenes. But coming from the director of "Metropolis" and "M"?

It reminds me of an anecdote told by the psychologist who wrote "The Three Christs of Ypsilanti." That's a psychiatric hospital in Michigan. Three patients claimed to be Jesus Christ. The psychologist was watching a film with the one named Louie. Adlai Stevenson, then Governor of Illinois, appeared on the screen. "That's me," cried Louie, "I'm Adlai Stevenson." The psychologist replied, "I thought you were Jesus Christ." "I am," said Louie, "I'm Jesus Christ too -- but I've got to make a living."

Fritz Lang must have had some similar motive for making this rather routine war film. It has every cliché in the book. The romance thrown into the middle of the muddle. The cavalry riding to the rescue at the last possible moment. The acting of the principals is at par, but some of the bits are played by people who seem to have had no training in inducing a suspension of audience disbelief.

The best scene in the film has Tom Ewell (in an uncommonly dramatic part) trying to hide from the Japanese under a rotting log. His bare feet are on an ant hill and soon his skin is crawling with stinging ants while he bites his tongue and prays.

The best performance is given by the Japanese officer. He's great. Sinewy, dapper, ruthless, ironic. Speaking to Michelline Presle, who has been aiding the guerrillas -- "You rike Americans with WHITE FACES, like boiled pork." Marvelous line. (That bleached skin, like blue eyes, is an evolutionary anomaly confined to northwestern Europe.) The guy is fascinating to watch physically, in the way that Jack Palance is.

Minor error. Ty Power and Tom Ewell are reporting on the position and movements of two Japanese destroyers (actually, they look like Geary-class American ships). Power gives the info on the ships to Ewell next to him, who relays it by phone to a radio operator who encodes and transmits it. But the operator isn't sending information on the location of the ships. He keeps sending the word "news" over and over, interspersed with a couple of letter "b"s.

It is not, as I say, a bad movie. It's just done rather by the numbers. A far better job dealing with our defeat in the Phillipines was done by John Ford in "They Were Expendable." This film is worth watching as a description of the very real guerrilla movement that developed in the Islands after that initial defeat.