jeffhill1

What with the 1943 "Gung Ho", "Guadalcanal Diary," "Purple Heart,"

and other made-during-World War II films I saw as a kid on television,

I had thought I had seen every racist anti-"Jap" propaganda movie ever

made by Hollywood. But "First Yank Into Tokyo" is one I do not

remember seeing as a kid. It is not only the most racist movie I have

ever seen, it is probably simply the worst film I have ever seen in any

category of motion picture. To me as an American who has lived in

Japan for 30 years, the Asian-Americans playing Japanese soldiers are

as obviously not racially Japanese as if someone had made a movie about

William the Conqueror fighting the Battle of Hastings in 1066 with a

cast of Europeans recruited entirely from Athens, Greece and Instanbul,

Turkey. Everything, from the physical characteristics to the

mannerisms, is wrong. On the one hand, the film presents the Japanese as bespeckled, buck

toothed, arrogant goofs. On the other hand, when portraying a

Japanese prisoner of war camp during World War II, the film makes the

place a country club compared to the real horrors encountered by anyone

who was held in a Japanese POW camp during the war.

Overall, the film radiates an overwhelming ignorance and apathy by

the film makers towards any authenticity whatsoever.

I haven't forgotten this movie even though haven't seen it in

almost 40 years. Tyrone Power plays a man unhappy with his own era in

human time while being almost obsessed with 18th century England.

Somehow, he knows that, due to a lightning bolt or something, he is

going to trade places with a man from the 18th century. And he is

delighted at the prospect of being transported to the era of charm,

grace, and sophistication and exchange wisdoms and witticisms with such

greats as Ben Johnson in a London coffee house. When the time switch

happens, he discovers that the times weren't what they were cracked up

to be. The streets are foul. The coffee shop conversationalists are

pompous and depressingly ignorant of certain fundamentals (to a 20th

century man) of science, geography, and even philosophical essentials

of the dignity of mankind. And instead of himself being received as a

man blessed with advance scientific knowledge, he is perceived to be

both an agent of Satan and insane. Meanwhile, of course, he meets the alter ego of the woman he knew in

the 20th century and a tender, haunting love story envelops the viewer.

"Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay!" refers to calls the driver uses to direct his team of mules when out working on a job. After seeing the film on "The Late Show" as a teenager, I was a June Haver fan for a while, so I was thrilled when I saw and approached her in Restored Williamsburg, Virginia with her husband, Fred McMurray in the spring of 1962. Marilyn Monroe was to have a small part in Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! She was standing by a tree and when the character of Snug encountered her, she said, "Hello." But that part got cut out before the film went into the can. I think Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! is noteworthy in that it is the only film I can think of in which Walter Brennan plays something other than comedy relief or somebody's sidekick. Look it over when you have the chance and see if you don't think he is formulatin' the character of Grandpappy Amos of "The Real McCoys."