Wednesday, July 7, 2010

The Purple Heart (1944)

Directed by Lewis Milestone
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, 20th Century Fox)

Dana Andrews is the Captain of a bomber squadron that has just completed a run over Tokyo but forced to bail out over China. They are captured, returned to Japan and put on trial for murder. Locked up in a cell, each member of the squadron is lead away to be "interrogated". The Japs want to know their origin, aircraft carrier or land, to better deploy their defenses. Each man returns having been subjected to different kinds of torture, one has a broken arm, another no voice, another wears rubber gloves to cover some kind of wound to his hands. Meanwhile, the trial continues, and they are tempted by an offer of amnesty in return for information. It's pure propaganda from the height of WWII: the Japs are demonized and the Americans sing patriotic songs and give speeches on how they didn't start the war, but by golly they are going to finish it.

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