Reviews
The Wind and the Lion (1975)
Based on actual events which happened at the turn of the century involving Morocco and the United States.
Though it makes some enormous jumps from historical fact, this period adventure is great fun. Sean Connery is a Barbary Chief who kidnaps an American Woman(Candice Bergen) and her children in Tangiers for ransom. The timing of the kidnapping allows Teddy Roosevelt(Brian Keith) to pin his re-election on a great show of military and diplomatic muscle.
The film is lavish in costumes and locations--bringing to life an idealized portrait of the dawn of the American century.
Blood Alley (1955)
The Duke ferries a group of Chinese refugees down the Yangtze aboard a run-down river steamer to escape the communist Chinese communist.
Twelve years before Wayne would offer his uncomplicated view of the Vietnam War in "Green Berets," he offered this view of People's Republic of China in the mid-fifties.
The boatload of refugees are the future of China. If they can escape to Hong Kong and Taiwan they will be the seeds of China's eventual rebirth--or so the mesaage seems to be.
Bridge to the Sun (1961)
Autobiographical story of an American Woman who marries a Japanese diplomat before World War Two and is deported to Japan after Pearl Harbor.
This is the true story of Gwen Terasaki who married a Japanese diplomat before World War Two and then returned with him to Japan after Pearl Harbor. It tells the story of the war from an entirely new perspective, and is the first film to depict the racial nature of the Pacific war, and to depict the suffering of the common Japanese people.
Air Force (1943)
A B-17 crew arrives in Hawaii the morning of the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor and then chases the enemy fleet to a showdown in the Phillipines.
The most interesting thing about this film is that its characters become the basis for a subplot in Quentin Tarentinos "Pulp Fiction" fifty years later.
IN Pulp Fiction, Christopher Walken's character tells the young "Butch" about his grandfather on Wake Island giving his watch to a passing bomber crew before the Japanese came. The bomber crewman he gave it to was called "Winocki". In "Air Force" John Garfield plays that crewman.