Bataan
by Tay Garnett
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: George Murphy, Lee Bowman, Lloyd Nolan, Robert Taylor, Thomas MitchellDirector: Tay Garnett
Brand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 114 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-05-18
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: MGM
Movie Reviews of Bataan
Movie Review: FORGOTTON BUT GREAT WAR DRAMA---THEY JUST DON'T MAKE'M LIKE THAT ANYMORE !
Summary: 5 Stars
BATAAN is a GREAT war movie. My dad, a war-movie and war-book buff introduced me to it. It has captivated me ever since, never losing its edge with repeated viewing. This is not an epic or grandiose war movie. This is not SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. Simply, BATAAN is great movie-making at its best, war movie or not, fictional or not. With minimal-to-no blood splatter, no body parts flying around and no huge showy explosions or conflagrations, we have a suspenseful, tension-racked story about the real-life heroes and martyrs of the Bataan peninsula in the Philipines circa 1942. Gotta laud all involved in the making of this one. The basic story involves a small group of soldiers who staunchly defend American interests and filipino soil against the Japanese, literally until the last man. What's wonderful about this underrated gem is that the enemy is predominantly unseen [at least until the end] and strikes when least expected. The most un-nerving type of enemy in ANY war [ask a WW2 vet or a guy just back from Iraq] is the "invisible" one: the sniper. These guys are holed up in a thick filipino jungle with snipers everywhere. The tension gradually builds as the enemy gets closer and the boys get picked off one after another [Kubrick must have been influenced for his awesome sniper scenario in FULL METAL JACKET, 1987]. The cast is great headed by a memorable and endearing performance by Robert Taylor as the leader of the US last-standers, a fine performance by the always kick-butt Lloyd Nolan, Oscar winner Thomas Mitchell [STAGECOACH, 1939], Robert Walker [STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, 1951], George Murphy, a young Desi Arnaz of I LOVE LUCY fame and even Barry Nelson [AIRPORT, 1970]. They battle not just the enemy but their own ambivalence, doubts, fears, their pasts, their age [from the tired, overworked veteran Mitchell to the jittery, inexperienced Walker] AND the jungle itself [i.e. malaria, poor visibility, lots of places to hide...etc]. There are some exciting and well-done one-on-one combat scenes---some of the best ever. Taylor is marvelous as the vulnerable but stalwart and courageous #1 in command who keeps the tenuous group focused and committed. The ending last-stand scene where Taylor blasts away on all cylinders behind the last working machine gun is evocative and symbolized the understood personal mandate never to surrender and go down firing when American lives are at stake.
Summary of Bataan
Japan has just invaded the Phillipines and the US Army attempts a desperate defence. Thirteen men are chosen to blow up a bridge on the Bataan peninsula and keep the Japanese from rebuilding it.Tay Garnett was a hard-nosed, job-of-all-work director who moved from studio to studio and genre to genre throughout the golden age of Hollywood. He never achieved the status, let alone the distinctive signature, of a Howard Hawks or Raoul Walsh; still, with talent, brashness, and cojones to spare, he was responsible for a slew of cheerfully vulgar entertainments, and several genuinely fine films.
Bataan may well be the best. Certainly it's one of the strongest Hollywood salutes to the war effort while World War?II was still raging. In his grittiest role to date, Robert Taylor (sans mustache) plays a U.S. Army sergeant fighting a rear-guard action in the Philippine jungle, covering Douglas MacArthur's retreat. His platoon is the usual wartime study in democratic motley: veterans (Lloyd Nolan, Thomas Mitchell, Tom Dugan) thrown together with green recruits (Robert Walker, Barry Nelson), a Latino (Desi Arnaz), a black (Kenneth Spencer), not to mention a couple of stalwart Filipinos (Roque Espiritu, J. Alex Havier), and several officer types (George Murphy, Lee Bowman) with sense enough to defer to the sergeant's judgment. As in John Ford's desert classic The Lost Patrol, the group is whittled down through misadventure, disease, and skirmishes with the ever-advancing Japanese, till only a handful remain for a still-shattering last stand.
Bataan was made at MGM, and the principal setting, a jungle clearing overlooking a strategic bridge, stinks of the soundstage. In other respects, however, Garnett manages to introduce shocking, un-Metro-like realism into the proceedings. In an early scene of bombardment, a GI, blinded, crawls out of the wreckage of a field hospital only to have a smoking roofbeam crush his bandaged skull. There's nothing cosmetic about the wounds in this movie; they hurt and they bleed, and people get them during the most gruesome hand-to-hand combat in any '40s war movie. --Richard?T. Jameson
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