★ 6 / 10
There is something of the Rudyard Kipling about
CinemaSerf
There is something of the Rudyard Kipling about this story of a troop of American soldiers left on Mindanao after the US army withdrew from the Philippines at…
There is something of the Rudyard Kipling about this story of a troop of American soldiers left on Mindanao after the US army withdrew from the Philippines at the start of the 20th century. They are tasked with training up a local police force to try and combat some religious fanatics bent on subjugating the local population. It's an odd, but good, role for Gary Cooper ("Dr. Canavan") who is the army surgeon whom alongside David Niven ("Lt. McCool") must try to save the military contingent and the local populace from the brutal and frequently ingenious tactics of their foes. Broderick Crawford and Reginald Owen feature as his less than competent military superiors, and Andrea Leeds puts in a decent effort as "Linda Hartley", a damsel not afraid to join in and help out!
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★ 1 / 10
Unbelievable, With Quite a Bit of...
quitwastingmytime
...bigotry, both racism and religious bigotry. You bet, all Filipinos are simple minded, superstitious, gullible, fearful, and just loved the American…
...bigotry, both racism and religious bigotry.
You bet, all Filipinos are simple minded, superstitious, gullible, fearful, and just loved the American invaders.
You bet, all Muslims are sinister, savage, violent, bloodthirsty, and treacherous. They, living in the Philippines for centuries before it was called that, keep getting referred to as "invaders" while the invading US troops are not.
What's really amusing is that these rebels in the jungle are all built like body builders, while the farmers are all skinny, older, frail men. I wonder where they got the actor playing a suicide attacker, because he was half a foot taller than the one playing the US officer. Circus performer? Mr. Philippines Weight Lifting competition?
It's almost as unbelievable as Niven's veddy British accent while playing an American. Or a US army doctor going on guerilla and scouting expeditions on his own, and outfighting whole rebel units.
This film even fails as an action film. The middle third is very slow, Cooper searching for a cure for a plague. Another long segment is surviving a drought. The love story makes up more tedious slow parts.
The action scenes are perhaps ten minutes total. They are unintentionally funny. The rebel leader goes back and forth between English and the local language when speaking to other rebels.
US troops also build rafts in the middle of a battle, literally in seconds, with no tools in sight. US troops then stand straight up on the rafts while going through the rapids. Filipino rebels, with a life time in the area, quickly fall down.
See it as either a crazy example of bad colonial nostalgia, or unintentional comedy.
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