Ambush Bay

A laconic war movie shot in The Philippines and set there twenty years earlier (not that you'd know it from female lead Tisa Chang's sixties blouse and slacks (the latter tight enough for it to be obvious she's not wearing forties underwear). A year earlier it would've been in black & white, but local cameraman Emmanuel Rojas renders the local vegetation incongruously pretty in glossy De Luxe Color; although it does enables the blood to be vividly red. Most of the cast are a terse, taciturn bunch, especially ultra-tough commanding officer Hugh O'Brian; the emotion coming from Bob's boy Jim Mitchum, who also provides the film's narration.

I saw this movie when it came out. Sure it's flawed and riddled with clichés, but there's really only one reason to watch it and that's Mickey Rooney and his flippant comments when he gets wounded and confronted by the Japanese. Baked potatoes and you can eat them with the jackets on. That entire scene stuck in my mind all these years and I am re-watching the movie while I type this. The music is quite good. But if you're looking for a war movie that's accurate or reflects reality, this one isn't it. James Mitchum's character reminds me of one of those guys who questions everything and contributes nothing. By the end of the movie, you're rooting for him to get killed just so he'll shut up. Kind of like some liberals out there.

Just picked up this DVD for a song. Yes, the acting is wooden, the characters are archetypes of classic WWII yarns, and the blood was obviously red paint. But this film does include two nice touches: the cinematography, and the music score. I thought I recognized the music: Richard LaSalle was the composer for "Ambush Bay" and many of his music cues from this film turned up as incidental music on most of producer Irwin Allen's TV projects throughout the 1970's. The "Land of the Giants" series used a lot of his music in the later episodes. Oddly, in a peculiar coincidence, "Ambush Bay" co-script writer Ib Melchoir was a noted sci-fi film scribe, having penned "The Time Travelers" (1966), and is credited with creating the idea for producer Irwin Allen's "Lost In Space" (for which he was not given credit). And the tie-in is that composer LaSalle contributed scores to both "Time Travelers" and "Lost in Space" (sometimes fact IS stranger than fiction).

The criteria presented regarding this movie is correct, except for the comment on the US M4 Sherman. In all wars, including the Second World War, forces from all sides wind up capturing enemy equipment. M3A1 Stuart light tanks of US manufacture were caputred by the Japanese in the Philippines (in Bataan) during 1941 and subsequently pressed into their service. The tank depicted in the movie could have been captured during the Guadalcanal campaign as the island kept continuously changing hands, shipped to the Phillipines and assigned to serve whatever division occupied those islands. Simple as that. There are records that show a few Sherman tanks were INDEED captured during the entire Pacific War.

******SPOILERS******* Tightly produced, well-cast little war film, with sturdy O'Brian in the lead as a seasoned marine leading a small detatchment of crack troops into the Phillippeans in late 1943 on recon work. The only member of the troupe who isn't seasoned is the all-important radio operator (Mitchum) who's taken under the wing of the unit's "career marine" machine-gun specialist (yes, Rooney). Predictably, he manages to grate on everyone's nerves and be one of the mission's last survivors at the same time. Good writing manages to make the story's more contrived moments come off well, and carries the film with a realistic tone and feel. Another good production from Aubrey Schenck.

For standards of movie making decades later, the movie has its flaws but if you look past that, the plot is good and so is the acting. I enjoyed the nostalgia look at war movies where it was made close / somewhat close to when it happened and present day mannerisms, colloquial expressions and revisionist haven't taken too much of a overriding theme. The actors in this movie are thin which to me reflects what a true soldier living on rations would look like, they don't use foul language in every sentence nor do they talk about sex. The plot shows Americans with dedication to duty, callous to the death around them and respect for each other except for the character, Pfc James Grenier, played by James Mitchum. As you watch the movie you go from disliking Grenier to rooting for him as all of the members of the mission are killed off.

Much of this film takes place in the dark. So it is impossible to make out what is going on,which is rather frustrating. However what I did see looked cheap and cheesy. The Mitchum character was simply ridiculous. Why was he wearing a red cap in the jungle. Its all very predictable and second rate.