I love this movie so much

Redundant and unnecessary.

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

"Ensign Chuck Palmer" (Tyrone Power) is an American Navy officer who just happens to be stranded in the Philippines at the onset of World War II. With him are a few American Army soldiers who willingly accompany him on a small boat headed for Australia. Unfortunately, they encounter a typhoon and become stranded once again on the Filipino island of Leyte. It's at this time that they are encouraged to make a daring trek to another island in the Philippines to make contact with an American unit conducting guerrilla activities against the Japanese forces which are increasing at an alarming rate. However, rather than being given passage on a submarine back to Australia, Ensign Palmer is given the dangerous mission of setting up radio stations at certain key points to keep General MacArthur informed of enemy movements. And this is something that he has to do even though he knows nothing about radio communications and has very few supplies with which to carry out his assignment. Along with that he also has to contend with superior Japanese forces all around him. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that had this movie been filmed during World War II I might have cut it a little slack as these type of grade-B patriotic films were the product of the times. But because this was clearly not the case I feel compelled to be slightly more critical. As a result I have to say that this was a movie which was long on patriotism but sometimes a bit short on entertainment. There just wasn't much here to get excited about. Now don't get wrong—it wasn't necessarily a bad movie at all. But if the viewer is expecting something other than a run-of-the-mill war movie then they are likely to be somewhat disappointed. In any case, I rate this movie as about average—and that's giving it the benefit of the doubt even then.

It's not really about what I thought of the film - I note military and naval experts have commented on various inaccuracies. This is more a comment on an aspect of the film, which I saw many years ago in b/w, and got a greater insight into when seeing the Canadian commentator Elwy Yost's programmes on cinema history in the 1970's. How many viewers realise that the reason the heroine (the Filipino hero's wife) is cast as a Frenchwoman? This is not to make the story more romantic, or as a tribute to 'our gallant wartime allies' or even because the actress might be French, but because in those days to comply with the Hayes Code, the heroine, if she gets the white hero in the end (or vice versa!) has to be white!

Even as a non-movie war buff, I really enjoyed this movie. As a Filipino who lived in the Philippines for 16 years, 6 of which was in the province and the rest in the States, I really identify with the movie. It shows the beautiful scenery of the country and the rustic huts which are still being used to this day. It displays the villager life quite authentically as I recognized the national costume, (barong Tagalog and filipiniana), a typical nipa hut, the way people typically wash their clothes, and the huts on stilts.Tyrone Powell stars as the dashing war hero who gets blown off his PT boat and leads his motley crew to Australia. In the process, he gets caught up with the Filipino guerilla movement against the Japanese, trying to duck the Japanese whenever the village is invaded. It is an interesting portrayal of trying to make do with Asian countryside resources to make a viable radio to contact general MacArthurs troops. He meets the heroine who later becomes widowed and the two fall in love in the midst of the war. The ragtag crew gets caught in a last stand at a sturdy church, when General MacArthur arrives in the nick of time, making for a feel good movie, I found it exciting, easy to get into and located in a typical local Filipino flavor even featuring the typical native dance tinikling. I loved this movie, it will not disappoint. Maybe they could have portrayed the Japanese high rankers as a little bit more cruel, the way my mom used to describe to me, and they could have shown some Japanese as young kids who had no choice and were just homesick and were in a war they never wanted to be in. But other than that, an excellent war movie. The difference between movies in the 1950's and 2000's clearly show in terms of excellent acting and inspiring cinematography.

While it seems that the premise of this film was based on actual events in the Philippines, it comes across as a good actioner and little more. The movie is enhanced with location filming and, being only 5 years removed from the end of WWII, many of the people in this film served during that conflict. SPOILER: While the end of the movie is pure Hollywood, the cavalry, in the form of the U.S. Army and General MacArthur, riding to the rescue saved the real band of guerrillas, it makes for a tidy, yet abrupt ending to the movie. END SPOILER. For the poster that said the movie was to get the American public ready for Korea, your history is a bit off. The Korean War started in June of 1950, over 3 months before this movie was released and by the time it came out, we were very much involved; the amphibious landings at Inchon, South Korea came in September of 1950. This was not a propaganda movie per se, it was a look back at a time when Filipinos and Americans fought together to defeat the Japanese.