So Proudly We Hail: Cinema Classics

"We must have faith. We will fight to the death to make those tender and sentimental beliefs, like Christmas, a reality forever." -- The chaplain in a quiet and solemn moment on a ship bound for Bataan, nurses gathered around the Christmas tree.This superb wartime drama deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Mrs. Miniver. Those who dismiss it offhand as propaganda would do well to view it first and try not being moved. Based on the stories of eight real nurses who had survived Bataan and Corregidor, and were still serving their country, it offers a very real look at the dark early days of WWII, when men and women were doing little more than buy America time to regroup and rearm after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Director Mark Sandrich, remembered more today for his wonderful films with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, makes this long yet tender tribute to those nurses and soldiers a film every American should see.Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard, and Veronica Lake make you forget about their glamour a few moments into the film as the viewer is swept up in their plight. Written by Allan Scott, and photographed by Charles Lang, with a fabulous score by Miklos Rosza as accompaniment, all three leads shine in various times throughout the film. Lake owns the first portion of the film, Goddard the middle, and Colbert the end. Colbert is the anchor, however, becoming more accessible as the film goes on. George Reeves, as Colbert's sweetheart, and Sonny Tufts especially, as Goddard's, make this film charming and heartbreaking, elevating it beyond Hollywood's take on WWII nurses.As the film opens, the nurses are returning home from their harrowing tours in Bataan and Corregidor. But something traumatic has silenced their leader, Lt. Janet (Davy) Davidson, who wanted to stay behind and now will not speak. The doctor believes the only way to help her is to know in full the background of what happened to them. So as painful as it is to talk about, Joan O'Doul (Goddard) and the other girls relate their story. What follows is a tender and moving tragedy of many little tragedies suffered by Americans during those early days after we were attacked. In 1943, it was a wonderfully dramatic film which helped our country understand just what we were fighting for and the sacrifice the free world was making towards that end. Viewed today, it is no less a moving document of a remarkable time in the world's history.Davy and Janet find themselves on a ship in the middle of the Pacific awaiting orders after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Veronica Lake joins the nurses in the shaky and uncertain future before them. Olivia (Lake) will not make friends or socialize with the other nurses. Only after they discover they are heading to Bataan, a place none have ever heard of, does Davy finally reach inside and pull out of her the heartbreaking reason she must go with them. Lake has one of her finest moments on film here, and will have another when the nurses must escape from the oncoming Japanese soldiers or suffer the fate of those women at Nanking. It is the pivotal dramatic moment in the film, changing the film's tone and letting us know that this is a serious film about war and sacrifice.The human element is never lost amidst the bombings and makeshift hospitals, as letters from home, wartime romance, and the impending chance they may themselves not survive are handled well by Sandrich. Colbert is excellent throughout as their solid leader trying not to fall in love with a soldier (George Reeves) taken with her, but not succeeding. It will lay more at her doorstep until one more retreat without knowing for sure he is okay will overwhelm her. It is Goddard's Joan who lights up the screen, however, changing from the frivolous and flirtatious to reveal a depth brought out by war and circumstance. Her unexpected romantic attachment to a sweet but none too bright soldier named Kansas has both charm and a sense of realism. Sonny Tufts excels in the role of Kansas and left an impression on moviegoers.Little moments of normalcy and fun, such as Joan's black evening dress she takes or wears everywhere, even underneath the kaki, and Davy's Tojo, the tiny monkey given her by John, who becomes their mascot, are offset by deflating war news of convoys they were counting on for relief being sunk, and constant bombings of the hopitals during the early days of the war. In this way, it is a very real picture of what happened, with war interrupting plans and lives, and taking people in directions they could not have foreseen. Mary Servoss gives a fine performance also as the Captain who suffers a loss greater than any should ever have to bear. Barbara Britton and Walter Abel round out a fine cast.Those who either dismiss this film without seeing it first, or give up on it after the first half hour, are truly missing out on one of the most moving tributes to those who served their country during those dark early days of WWII ever filmed. Some gave all. A touching and fabulous film not to be missed.

If you collect 1940's war movies, this fits right in perfectly.

I truely love this movie and Claudette Colbert, Rony Lake, Paulette!! George Reeves was excellent in this movie!!It showed how the military nurses coped in WWII! What a realistic picture if you were not born back then!! My God what courage they had! I love all the military people for their strength and courage! Especially today after finding out what lies caused the wars! And who caused the wars!! Just think it was all for monitory purposes for the elites to gain! The lives of men and women of our country a other countries fought for what they thought was needed, when in fact it was all false flags! Just think of the people we lost to this nonsense of gaining power and money to a small group of selfish devils!!!! When I watch this movie I cry because of the lost of life and patriotism these Americans had! And they thought they were fighting for a cause, but it wasn't what the real agenda was! God bless every one that fought, because in their hearts it was real to them!!! I really love every actress and actor in this movie, because I truely see the morals and ethics of the men and women of this country and other countries! Claudette, Veronica, Paulette and George and all the other actors and actresses for the reality of this film! May God rest their souls!!!! And may the people that caused the wars to be, may they pay highly for the lies that caused the deaths of many brave military Doctors, Nurses, civilians and brave soldiers of our country! May they burn in hell for their wrong and the power of money and power over the human race! God bless the people of our military today! And may the world wake up to the monstrassity of these evil people! GOD BLESS AMERICA! LET'S MAKE IT GREAT AGAIN!!!!

I’ve always enjoyed this film. Glad I can watch it again. Claudette Colbert was always such a ‘lady’…..hard to find in todays movie world.

Love this movie. This has excellent clarity and has cc

This is a great movie that really tells what World War II was really like. it goes behind the scenes of some army nurses and this problems they had trying to take care of the sick and the wounded while in the Philippines. The cast is great the directing and the acting is fantastic And this has gone down as being one of the great classics of all times I highly recommend this movie to everyone.

Watched this movie on DVD recently. Excellent movie. Vastly underrated. Inspired by true events. I was completely immersed in the movie. Realistic scenes behind the battle lines in Bataan and Corregidor, given the technology of 1943.US army nurses taking care of wounded Army and Marines, while mercilessly bombed by the Japanese. Overwhelmed by the incredible numbers of wounded and lack of medical supplies, the heroic nurses courageously push on, despite exhaustion, malaria, and their own injuries.Veronica Lake was absolutely amazing as Lt. Olivia D'Arcy. One scene alone was worthy of a nomination for Best Supporting Actress. I can only imagine how Americans in movie theaters in 1943 felt watching that scene.4 Academy Award Nominations : Best Supporting Actress (Paulette Goddard), Best Cinematography (Black & White), Best Special//Visual Effects, and Best Writing/Original Screenplay.Highly recommend watching this 2 hour movie. Does not appear on IMDB top 100 movies about World War 2, but most definitely should be. Does not appear in a Google search for 50 best World War 2 movies, but should be.

Wonderful to movie. Condition is excellent

Remember bits of this from when I was a kid. A different role for Veronica Lake.

This film, based on real events, tells about the battles of Luzon, Bataan and Corregidor (8 December 1941 - 6 May 1942), in which, even if they fought bravely, Americans and their Filipino allies were defeated by Japanese, with a heavy loss of life. With Japanese Empire on offensive in all Pacific and with Washington being unable to efficiently assist, relieve or evacuate the defenders of Philippines, those months were certainly the darkest page in all history of American armed forces.What happened after those battles was even worse, as the Japanese forced Filipino and American prisoners, exhausted and malnourished, to march at the double to the prisoner assembly area, before packing them tightly in trains and bringing them to POW camp. During the march, all those who couldn't walk fast enough were shot, bayonetted or beheaded - and the conditions in the trains were such, that more prisoners died from suffocation. In all, on a distance of barely 128 kilometres in all, no less than 2500 Filipino and 500 Americans died or were murdered... Even if this "Bataan death march" is NOT shown, the knowledge that it will unavoidably happen, permeates this whole film...Made in 1943, soon after those events occurred, this film shows well the desperate and dark mood of tragic days of defeat and death. It is somehow made even better by its unique point of view offered, as the main characters are those American soldiers who shared all the deadly dangers with the combatants, but who were saving lives, rather than taking them - US military nurses, who earned for their courage and devotion the name of "Angels of Bataan".For the needs of this war time production, Hollywood mustered three of its first league top actresses and half a dozen of lesser starlets.Claudette Colbert plays in this film the main character, Lt. Janet Davidson, a tough, intelligent, serious, no-nonsense middle-aged woman, who is a natural born leader and an authority figure for younger nurses, when in the same time meeting, for the first time in her life, a true love in the middle of the hell...Paulette Goddard plays magnificently a younger, prettier, sexy, cheerful and flirtatious nurse, Lt. Joan O'Doul - and her performance brought her a nomination for the Oscar of Best Supporting Actress (she ultimately didn't get it).Veronica Lake, who although barely 21 years old was in 1943 one of the main sex-symbols in Hollywood (especially after her main role in 1942 "I married a witch"), plays here one of the youngest nurses, Lt. Olivia D'Arcy, a great beauty, but who is an emotional wreck since her fiancé was killed in first days of war... Her time screen is more limited than that of two other main characters, but she steals every scene in which she appears - and her FINAL scene in this film SHOCKED America in 1943 and still packs today an ENORMOUS punch!Amongst other actresses, it is worth to mention the beautiful Barbara Britton, who plays Lt. Rosemary Larson and who later appeared in a lot of westerns, as well as Lorna Grey, a very pretty girl, who plays Lt. Tony Dacolli. In her career Lorna Grey played mostly comic characters or villain vixens - and after retiring from acting, she is still alive and well today in 2013, at the greatly respectable age of 95...This being a war time production, it has some necessary flaws of this kind of films, like occasionally very heavy clubbing with patriotic message - even the title is taken from American national anthem "Star-Spangled Banner". But as director took great care to not overdo it, it doesn't hurt this film much.The desperate defence of Bataan against a stronger and relentless enemy, as well as the grim atmosphere of life in crowded, claustrophobic tunnels of besieged fortress at Corregidor, are very well shown. The film shows in many occasions the courage of doctors and nurses, who sometimes operated LITERALLY under bombs and bullets, as well as the sufferings of wounded and sick soldiers and civilians, especially when medical supplies began to miss...So bottom line, I liked this film a lot and I believe it is one of the more successful "morale raisers" made by Hollywood between 1941 and 1945. Warmly recommended!

One of a precious few good movies dealing with the early months of WW2 in the Pacific.

This wartime film, made in 1943 follows the experiences of a group of nurses sent to the Philippines shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor; they subsequently find themselves in Bataan, then in the Malinta Tunnel in Corregidor; the story is told in flashback by the group after their evacuation – they are the only nurses to escape the Japanese onslaught.Based in part on Juanita Hipps` memoir “I Served On Bataan” this would have been a very current topic for American audiences and consequently the film focusses on the courage of the military and the nurses faced with the prospect of defeat.The horrors of the Bataan Death March would not have been known at the time.To a modern audience, the patriotism and rather corny characterisations are crude and obvious, but the story is essentially built around the love stories of Goddard and Colbert`s characters against the backdrop of the greater events; for all the strong propaganda elements, it still remains an engaging story for our own times.This Region 1 DVD will require a region-free player (or one set to region free) in order to play it in the UK; it provides a good, sharp print of the film in original 4:3 aspect ratio; there are very good English subtitles.An extra is a selectable 2-minute introduction by film historian Robert Osborne who provides some background to the cast relationships of the film.

An epic story.A very thorough and evocative look at the horrors of war through the eyes of the nursing corps assigned to the Philippines.The evolving narrative takes us on a journey no one wants to go on. Exhausted and wounded-weary their exploites never seem to stop. The constant raids, the unrelenting streams of injured of all ages, under constant threat of the ever encroaching Japanese army upon their makeshift medical enclaves.It all proves to be too much as the dramatic sacrifices take their toll.Well acted (40s style) by a host of Hollywood's elite. Brilliantly directed and produced.A classic B&W war story made at the time the events were actually going on.