Back To Bataan (DVD)

This film sees John Wayne leaving his cowboy films behind and playing the role of Colonel Joseph Madden. Madden is stationed out on the island of Luzon in the Philippians who are under attack from the Japanese. The film is set in 1945 during the second world war. Madden is told he must leave his men behind and go out to work with the guerrilla fighters who are going to help defend the Island. Madden meets up with some of the men and they set of to ...
...Japanese occupation but along the way they find a work line which consists of hundreds of captured soldiers. Madden spots a Captain Andres Bonifacio and sets about breaking him free so that he can join them with their mission.

Madden soon learns that Bonifacio is not willing to fight as he believes that the love of his life is a traitor and now working for the Japanese. The men set off and soon reach a school where the Japanese have ... more

This film sees John Wayne leaving his cowboy films behind and playing the role of Colonel Joseph Madden. Madden is stationed out on the island of Luzon in the Philippians who are under attack from the Japanese. The film is set in 1945 during the second world war. Madden is told he must leave his men behind and go out to work with the guerrilla fighters who are going to help defend the Island. Madden meets up with some of the men and they set of to reach the oil field which they hold is not in Japanese occupation but along the way they find a work line which consists of hundreds of captured soldiers. Madden spots a Captain Andres Bonifacio and sets about breaking him free so that he can join them with their mission.

Madden soon learns that Bonifacio is not willing to fight as he believes that the love of his life is a traitor and now working for the Japanese. The men set off and soon reach a school where the Japanese have just hung the head teacher as he refused to take down the American flag and the now teacher is charge asks them to stay and help her fight of the invading Japanese but when Madden refuses she is not happy and tells him so!

Will Madden be able to complete his mission of getting the Japanese out of the oil field and will he ever return to Bataan to help defend the school and the lives of the children there? Will Bonifacio ever be reunited with the love of his life to find out if she really is a traitor or not?

OK so this is another John Wayne film which did pout me off right from the stat but I was not so dubious about watching it as I have noticed how much better John Wayne seems to be when he is not playing a cowboy as he does manage to bring a new element to the different roles. I found him to be very good in this film but a did have to look very hard at the start of the film to see if was actually him as he looked very different, not just because he was so young in this film but he had a beard which really did make him look different, his voice was also not as deep as in later films which did slight throw me for a few minutes. He managed to portray his role in a brilliant way and show so many different sides to his character, he would be a hard man one minute fighting and the next he would be a soft cuddly man talking to the young boy who wanted to go and fight with him.

The supporting actors in the film were all excellent and managed to bring some depth to the film and each had their own slight side stories which I found to make the film slightly more watch able and interesting. Anthony Quinn took the role of Bonifacio and he did a great job and I liked how he was more interested in the love of his life and not fighting.

At the start of the film we are told that it is all based on true events and told as it actually happened. We see shots of men being liberated from the prison camps and told that these are the men who were portrayed in the film. Both me and hubby were trying to work out if they were the actual shots of the real men as they just looked too well made and produced to be of the age they were originally shot in. Despite not knowing I think that this made me enjoy the film more as I do like true stories especially war ones instead of these massive made up ones with explosions going off all over the place. I think that it was extremely well made and as it was not always full of fighting and action it was more enjoyable as the film did also feature a different side of the war with the children and the village involved in it.

The film was set in 1945 and I found the sets and costumes to be all very realistic and authentic for this period of time. The effects throughout the film were good but very dated now and at times we could see where the explosion landed miles away form the soldier but they still jumped and then did a very bad dying scene! These would have looked excellent when the film was released but as things have moved on now they looked quite cheap and bad but this can be forgiven as the film was made in 1945. The music in the film was good and all appropriate for the places which it was used but I have to say it was not up to the standard which we see in other John Wayne films.

This film is in black and white which is another thing which put me off but after the fist few minutes I completely forgot about this and actually it did not bother me in the slightest. The running time of the film is 1 hour and 28 minutes and the certificate is a PG. I do agree with this certificate.

There are no bonus features on the DVD which we have which was no great loss for me as I am not a fan of them anyway. We bought this DVD many months ago for just under £4 on Amazon so do shop around for the lowest possibly price.

I am going to recommend this film as it shows a different side to John Wayne and it is a true war story which has been put across in a great way and the Americans are not blowing things up all over the place!

 

...less