THE PURPLE HEART (1944)

A fairly effective WWII propaganda film which fictionalizes the aftermath of an actual event, the Doolittle bombing raid on Tokyo in 1942. Eight fliers who bail out of damaged planes over China are captured by the Japanese and put on trial, against the rules of the Geneva Convention, on charges of murder (for supposedly deliberately bombing schools and hospitals). What the Japanese really want out of the men is information about how they got to Tokyo. They suspect that the Americans came from a carrier, in which case the Japanese Navy will be in trouble for letting it through "impenetrable" waters, but the Japanese also suspect that they could have come from bases in China or Russia. We know that they came from the carrier Hornet, but the men vow not to tell the truth and they keep their vow, despite instances of torture and promises of leniency. In the end, the prosecuting general (Richard Loo) commits hari-kari in the courtroom and the men are marched off to execution, though in reality, four of them managed to survive the war. This is not a traditional war film (no scenes of battle) nor is it really a courtroom drama (at least half of the film takes place in the men's cell, with occasional flashbacks and reveries). Its main purpose does indeed seem to be to serve as homefront propaganda, to remind us about the sacrifices our soliders were called upon to make. In that, it mostly succeeds, though the last shot of the men marching down the prison hallway in step to "Battle Hymn of the Republic" is a bit much. The acting is all fine: Dana Andrews is the stolid but fully human captain, and among the other prisoners are Farley Granger, Richard Conte, Charles Russell, and Don Barry. Benson Fong, who did lots of TV in the 60's and 70's, has a small but juicy part as a Chinese man who is ashamed of his father's betrayal of the pilots. The strangest scene is when the fall of Corregidor is announced in the courtroom; the military men immediately jump to their feet and do an odd ritual dance with their swords. The most over-the-top scene, aside from the ending, is when one of the pilots stares out of the barred window into the clouds and hears his girlfriend recite "How Do I Love Thee?" [FMC]