Manila Calling

If you are a fan of 1940s actress Carole Landis this is a must-see movie. I'm thrilled that Fox has finally released it on DVD. Carole plays a showgirl who gets trapped with a group of soldiers in the Phillipines during World War 2. Her costar and love interest is the always terrific Lloyd Nolan. This drama has a really wonderful cast including Cornel Wilde, Elisha Cook Jr, and James Gleason. The groups tries to stay alive on a plantation when they get attacked by the enemy. Manila Calling has some great action and a few heart wrenching scenes. It's one of my favorite WW2 movies and one of Carole's best performances. TEN STARS!!!!! For years this movie was very hard to find but now Manila Calling is available on DVD from amazon and movies unlimited. I highly recommend it :-)

During the late 60's & early 70's N.Y. WWOR CHANNEL 9 would run the same movie every day for a week (this was a long time before VCR's). I would watch it every chance I had, unfortunately it's not currently available in any format. This movie is where Steven Spielberg came up with the ever so "original" sniper praying to hit his mark. As I remember the soldiers were stationed in a barbedwire fenced compound which reminds me of the T.V. series Daktari. The "japs" would snipe at the Americans, and in turn the Scottish sniper would slip out and hunt the "japs". Other films of this quality; BATAAN, GUNG HO! (1943)

"Manila Calling" is a WWII propaganda film made to bolster the war effort. Being made in 1942, it came out about the same time that the US was in some of its darkest days of the war...when victory seemed out of reach. Just after the fall of the Philippines came this picture...to encourage everyone that just because these islands fell does not mean that the war is over or even close to it.

The story begins just after the fall of the islands. A group of American and Filipino folks have gathered together to form a band of guerillas. Their goal is to resist and fight the Japanese military occupation to the end. The film is about their struggle and eventual decision to create a clandestine radio station to encourage the locals to fight.

This is a decent propaganda film because although this ragtag group of folks seem to have almost super-human fighting abilities, they are NOT impossible to stop. One by one they are killed and the message is not that resistance is without costs or that impossible odds are actually very possible....something I appreciated. Worth seeing if a bit jingoistic at times.

It's great when a good picture shows up when you weren't expecting one - and this was a good picture. Can't tell if it was a strong 'B' or a weak 'A', but it was worth the 80 minutes I spent on it. It is a jingoistic, patriotic, support-the-troops World War II film that is thoroughly enjoyable. Lots of action throughout, and with lots of dead (as I lose myself in the heat of the moment) Japs, and with good jobs all around in the acting department. Stalwart Lloyd Nolan is the star of the picture, but when Carole Landis is on screen it's hard to take your eyes off her.

Nolan leads a group of civilian engineers in the Phillipines trying to string wire prior to the arrival of Japanese forces. They wrest a ranch/farm from a garrison of Japanese soldiers as a base of operations and Landis arrives with another civilian purported to be her boyfriend - or maybe not. From there on things don't go well for the Americans, among them James Gleason as a caricature of an Irishman and Cornel Wilde as an assistant engineer.

There are several good firefights and a rousing speech on the short wave by Nolan, and I gave the whole production a rating of 7. It was at least that good. This film is not available in any format and I bought a print from one of the many fly-by-night film copiers found in magazines and newspapers.

Lloyd Bridges and a handful of American and Filipino guerillas hold out in the jungle hills of the Philippines. Some Americans who didn't make it out with MacArthur show up, including Carole Landis.

It's a handsomely cast 20th Century-Fox B movie, with James Gleason, Cornell Wilde, Ralph Bird, Elisha Cook Jr., and Harold Huber filling out the cast, but when I wasn't lusting for Miss Landis, I was riveted by Nolan, who's always believable in this sort of movie, as an ordinary Joe caught up in a situation and doing a job against impossible odds. That's just the way Americans like to think of themselves, like Bogart but without the world-weary despair that paralyzes him at the start of the movie.

It should be noted that the movie doesn't pull any punches. Bridges' position and those who stick with him are hopeless. The best he or anyone can do is go out fighting, and shouting defiance against the Japanese. Would that we could all do as much in those situations which overwhelm us!