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IMDbPro

The Purple Heart

  • 19441944
  • PassedPassed
  • 1h 39m
IMDb RATING
6.6/10
960
YOUR RATING
Dana Andrews, Richard Conte, Don 'Red' Barry, John Craven, Farley Granger, Sam Levene, Richard Loo, Kevin O'Shea, and Charles Russell in The Purple Heart (1944)
This is the story of the crew of a downed bomber, captured after a run over Tokyo, early in the war. Relates the hardships the men endure while in captivity, and their final humiliation: being tried and convicted as war criminals.
Play trailer1:58
1 Video
43 Photos
  • Drama
  • History
  • War
This is the story of the crew of a downed bomber, captured after a run over Tokyo, early in the war. Relates the hardships the men endure while in captivity, and their final humiliation: bei... Read allThis is the story of the crew of a downed bomber, captured after a run over Tokyo, early in the war. Relates the hardships the men endure while in captivity, and their final humiliation: being tried and convicted as war criminals.This is the story of the crew of a downed bomber, captured after a run over Tokyo, early in the war. Relates the hardships the men endure while in captivity, and their final humiliation: being tried and convicted as war criminals.
IMDb RATING
6.6/10
960
YOUR RATING
  • Director
    • Lewis Milestone
  • Writers
    • Jerome Cady(screenplay)
    • Darryl F. Zanuck(story)
    • Richard Carroll(story development)
  • Stars
    • Dana Andrews
    • Richard Conte
    • Farley Granger
Top credits
  • Director
    • Lewis Milestone
  • Writers
    • Jerome Cady(screenplay)
    • Darryl F. Zanuck(story)
    • Richard Carroll(story development)
  • Stars
    • Dana Andrews
    • Richard Conte
    • Farley Granger
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 29User reviews
    • 13Critic reviews
  • See more at IMDbPro
  • Videos1

    Trailer
    Trailer 1:58
    Trailer

    Photos43

    Farley Granger, Sam Levene, and Richard Loo in The Purple Heart (1944)
    Sam Levene in The Purple Heart (1944)
    Dana Andrews and Richard Loo in The Purple Heart (1944)
    Dana Andrews and Farley Granger in The Purple Heart (1944)
    Dana Andrews, Farley Granger, and Sam Levene in The Purple Heart (1944)
    Farley Granger, Sam Levene, and Richard Loo in The Purple Heart (1944)
    Dana Andrews, Richard Conte, and Sam Levene in The Purple Heart (1944)
    Sam Levene in The Purple Heart (1944)
    Sam Levene in The Purple Heart (1944)
    Dana Andrews, Richard Conte, Farley Granger, and Sam Levene in The Purple Heart (1944)
    Sam Levene in The Purple Heart (1944)
    Sam Levene and Richard Loo in The Purple Heart (1944)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Dana Andrews
    Dana Andrews
    • Capt. Harvey Ross
    Richard Conte
    Richard Conte
    • Lt. Angelo Canelli
    Farley Granger
    Farley Granger
    • Sgt. Howard Clinton
    Kevin O'Shea
    • Sgt. Jan Skvoznik
    Don 'Red' Barry
    Don 'Red' Barry
    • Lt. Peter Vincent
    • (as Donald Barry)
    Trudy Marshall
    Trudy Marshall
    • Mrs. Ross
    Sam Levene
    Sam Levene
    • Lt. Wayne Greenbaum
    Charles Russell
    Charles Russell
    • Lt. Kenneth Bayforth
    John Craven
    John Craven
    • Sgt. Martin Stoner
    Tala Birell
    Tala Birell
    • Johanna Hartwig - Berlin News Correspondent
    Richard Loo
    Richard Loo
    • General Ito Mitsubi
    Peter Chong
    • Mitsuru Toyama
    Philip Ahn
    Philip Ahn
    • Saburo Goto
    • (uncredited)
    Anne Baxter
    Anne Baxter
    • Anne
    • (voice)
    • (uncredited)
    Luke Chan
    • Court Stenographer
    • (uncredited)
    Spencer Chan
    Spencer Chan
    • Naval Aide
    • (uncredited)
    Keye Chang
    • Adm. Kentara Yamagichi
    • (uncredited)
    Dimples Cooper
    • Geisha
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • Lewis Milestone
    • Writers
      • Jerome Cady(screenplay)
      • Darryl F. Zanuck(story)
      • Richard Carroll(story development) (uncredited)
    • All cast & crew
    • See more cast details at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      This film is based on the true story of eight crewmen of a US bomber that took part in the "Doolittle Raid" on Tokyo on April 18, 1942. The crewmen were Lt. Robert Hite, Lt. William G. Farrow, Lt. George Barr, Sgt. Harold A. Spatz, Cpl. Jacob De Shazer, Cpl. Dean Hallmark, Cpl. Robert Meder and Cpl. Chase Nielsen.
    • Goofs
      There should be a solid red circle inside the white star on the insignia on the fuselage of the B-25 "Mrs. Murphy". The insignia shown was not adopted until June, 1942, two months after the Doolittle Raid.
    • Quotes

      Captain Harvey Ross: No your excellency. It's true we Americans don't know very much about you Japanese. And we never did. And now I realize you know even less about us. You can kill us. All of us, or part of us. But if you think that's going to put the fear of god into the United States of America, and stop them from sending other flyers to bomb you, you're wrong. Dead wrong. They'll come by night, they'll come by day. Thousands of them. They'll blacken your skies and burn your cities to the ground and make you get down on your knees and beg for mercy. This is your war. You wanted it. You asked for it. You started it. And now you're going to get it. And it won't be finished until your dirty little empire is wiped off the face of the earth.

    • Connections
      Edited into All This and World War II (1976)
    • Soundtracks
      Memories
      Music by Egbert Van Alstyne

      The music that Canelli hears in the cell

      Also played at the end of Ross' flashback

    User reviews29

    Review
    Top review
    Simple, but effective
    It's hard to see this as much more than an effective piece of flag-waving propaganda. A handfull of American fliers are brought to trial in Shanghai after being captured and having participated in Doolittle's raid on Japan. The outcome of the trial is predetermined. The whole thing is revealed as a farce from the beginning, like the trial of the sherrif and his deputies in Mississippi back in the 1960s. Potentially objective journalists are excluded from the courtroom. The judge is clearly bent on hanging the defendants. Their court-appointed counsel does nothing. One by one the defendants are tortured, yet they never confess their guilt in bombing hospitals and spraying children's playgrounds with lead, which in fact they didn't do anyway in real life. When the surrender of the American and Philippino forces at Corregidor is announced, the Japanese military observers jump up screaming and do a demonic dance featuring flashing swords, all improvised. For about one minute the courtroom resembles a lunatic asylum before the discovery of phenothiazines.

    Towards the end they are offered a normal prisoner of war status by Richard Loo, the army officer who has been arguing that they flew off a carrier, if only they will admit that they did, in fact, fly off a carrier. That way he won't be proved wrong. Led by the thin-lipped, grimly determined Captain Dana Andrews they agree to plop their aviator's wings into a vase in a secret ballot. If even one pair of wings is broken they will accept Loo's offer. Is there finally a pair of broken wings in the vase? Well -- consider the context.

    Here's a movie from the mid-war years. The Doolittle raid was real. It had no significance except as a morale booster, but it DID boos morale. All of the airplanes were lost, because the fleet carrying the B-25s was seen by a Japanese trawler (sunk as soon as possible) which was presumed to have radioed its contact back to its homeland. If, in fact, the trawler HAD alerted Japan, there was no evidence of it. When the bombers crossed the coast, one Japanese observer reported seeing "curious brown planes." So the target was caught unaware.

    It was an act of war. Nevertheless, some of the captured crews were executed, a violation of the Geneva Accords, which the Japanese had never signed anyway. (Read Ted Lawson's long out-of-print book, "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo," for a good first-hand account.)

    It has its moments of humor. Their defense council announces that he is a graduate of Princeton. Sam Levene introduces himself as "Greenbaum, City College of New York." This is a kind of joke because at the time, and afterward, CCNY was thought to be a hotbed of radicalism. There are also moments of sentimentality but they're mawkish and by the numbers.

    There is an attempt to reflect the contemporary world situation. The Russians are ambivalent. The Germans are enthusiastic trial attendees. The Argentinians are puzzled and wax wroth. (The Argentine government was later to prove more accomodating.) The Swiss Red Cross does its best but is helpless. The Chinese are divided, some of them duplicitous, although I doubt that any young man could bring himself in China to murder his own father.

    It's a serious movie. Not, like "Gung Ho," a simple exercise in demonstrating our superiority over the enemy. "Gung Ho" is funny. "The Purple Heart" isn't. It will probably make some viewers uncomfortable because it may prompt them to think of things like rigged trials, manufactured evidence, the assumption of guilt, and judicial corruption. On the other hand, of course, we must also take into account the timbre of the times. It's all to easy for us, sitting back in our sybaritic recliners and sipping Starbuck's, to look back at what tribulations an entire generation was going through in 1943 and judging them on our own terms. Of course, nothing is easier, and more wrong. Let's cut the movie makers a bit of slack. These were contentious times.
    helpful•21
    10
    • rmax304823
    • Feb 5, 2003

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • February 23, 1944 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Languages
      • English
      • Japanese
    • Also known as
      • Purpurhjärtat
    • Filming locations
      • 20th Century Fox Studios - 10201 Pico Blvd., Century City, Los Angeles, California, USA
    • Production company
      • Twentieth Century Fox
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

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    • Gross US & Canada
      • $1,500,000
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

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    • Runtime
      1 hour 39 minutes
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.37 : 1

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