The Purple Heart

The Purple Heart is one of those movies that stays with you. Yes, there is some sentimental and patriotic themese and stereotypes in it. But, considering that it was made during wartime when, while the war may have no longer been in doubt by 1944, it was far from over. The performances by Dana Andrews, and others as the basically doomed American flyers was very good. They managed to not only evoke sympathy and sorrow for their predicament, but strength, bravery and loyalty. If anybody thinks the Japanese portrayals were over the top or unrealistic, then go read the Rape of Nanking and about the Bataan Death March and the real building of the Bridge on the River Kwai. Putting it bluntly, I know a number of veterans who wished we dropped at least six more atomic bombs on the Japanese to pay them back for their cruelties and war crimes. For its time, the movie was pretty accurate and dead on historically. The performances are riveting.All in all it is a pretty good portrayal of how the Japanese actually were. As for the knucklehead who said that we started the war, go read a book meathead. The Japanese actually attacked us before Pearl Harbor near Nanking and the U.S.S. Panay incident where they bombed our gunboat that was a neutral country. This led to the boycotting of materials to the Japanese mainland.

It's hard to see this as much more than an effective piece of flag-waving propaganda. A handfull of American fliers are brought to trial in Shanghai after being captured and having participated in Doolittle's raid on Japan. The outcome of the trial is predetermined. The whole thing is revealed as a farce from the beginning, like the trial of the sherrif and his deputies in Mississippi back in the 1960s. Potentially objective journalists are excluded from the courtroom. The judge is clearly bent on hanging the defendants. Their court-appointed counsel does nothing. One by one the defendants are tortured, yet they never confess their guilt in bombing hospitals and spraying children's playgrounds with lead, which in fact they didn't do anyway in real life. When the surrender of the American and Philippino forces at Corregidor is announced, the Japanese military observers jump up screaming and do a demonic dance featuring flashing swords, all improvised. For about one minute the courtroom resembles a lunatic asylum before the discovery of phenothiazines.

Towards the end they are offered a normal prisoner of war status by Richard Loo, the army officer who has been arguing that they flew off a carrier, if only they will admit that they did, in fact, fly off a carrier. That way he won't be proved wrong. Led by the thin-lipped, grimly determined Captain Dana Andrews they agree to plop their aviator's wings into a vase in a secret ballot. If even one pair of wings is broken they will accept Loo's offer. Is there finally a pair of broken wings in the vase? Well -- consider the context.

Here's a movie from the mid-war years. The Doolittle raid was real. It had no significance except as a morale booster, but it DID boos morale. All of the airplanes were lost, because the fleet carrying the B-25s was seen by a Japanese trawler (sunk as soon as possible) which was presumed to have radioed its contact back to its homeland. If, in fact, the trawler HAD alerted Japan, there was no evidence of it. When the bombers crossed the coast, one Japanese observer reported seeing "curious brown planes." So the target was caught unaware.

It was an act of war. Nevertheless, some of the captured crews were executed, a violation of the Geneva Accords, which the Japanese had never signed anyway. (Read Ted Lawson's long out-of-print book, "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo," for a good first-hand account.)

It has its moments of humor. Their defense council announces that he is a graduate of Princeton. Sam Levene introduces himself as "Greenbaum, City College of New York." This is a kind of joke because at the time, and afterward, CCNY was thought to be a hotbed of radicalism. There are also moments of sentimentality but they're mawkish and by the numbers.

There is an attempt to reflect the contemporary world situation. The Russians are ambivalent. The Germans are enthusiastic trial attendees. The Argentinians are puzzled and wax wroth. (The Argentine government was later to prove more accomodating.) The Swiss Red Cross does its best but is helpless. The Chinese are divided, some of them duplicitous, although I doubt that any young man could bring himself in China to murder his own father.

It's a serious movie. Not, like "Gung Ho," a simple exercise in demonstrating our superiority over the enemy. "Gung Ho" is funny. "The Purple Heart" isn't. It will probably make some viewers uncomfortable because it may prompt them to think of things like rigged trials, manufactured evidence, the assumption of guilt, and judicial corruption. On the other hand, of course, we must also take into account the timbre of the times. It's all to easy for us, sitting back in our sybaritic recliners and sipping Starbuck's, to look back at what tribulations an entire generation was going through in 1943 and judging them on our own terms. Of course, nothing is easier, and more wrong. Let's cut the movie makers a bit of slack. These were contentious times.

This movie is essentially the third in a trilogy of films that deals with the actual bombing of Japan by the Doolittle raid, very early in World War Two. The first is "Destination Tokyo," a presentation about the submarine which went ashore to mark targets for the American raiders. The second is "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo," which is the story of the Doolittle raid, including the launching of the B-52's from the U.S.S. Hornet and the raid itself. "The Purple Heart" completes the cycle with the war trial of a captured American crew which took part in the attack.

One wonders how so many good things can be put into a movie which lasts only an hour and a half. There is a trial, action, good acting, few technical flaws, very precise and accurate dialogue, questions of honor and decency, patriotism on all sides, questions as to the role of the media, and the ever present suspense of the final resolution. Lewis Milestone deserves commendation for excellent direction, as each scene is composed to blend well with the major ideas in the movie. There is little in the film which is distracting or ill-fitting. And the characters are portrayed with confidence and continuity. In fact, it is difficult to find any character, major of minor, American or Japanese, which is less than complete. It seems some award is in order for the total effort of making this movie.

I am going to do something I don't normally do. I am going to give this film two ratings as the quality and effectiveness of the film varies over time.

For 1944 when this film came out, I'd give it a 9. It was an amazingly effective propaganda piece and must have done a lot at home to encourage the war effort. While there are some over the top scenes, the overall effect is a film that encourages patriotism and actually is more accurate in portraying the enemy than the typical war film of the era. I can easily imagine audiences of the time seeing this film and either enlisting or at least doing their best for the war effort after seeing THE PURPLE HEART.

For 2008, this film is an interesting curio but you can clearly see that a few overly sentimental and over the top scenes do a lot to lessen its impact and convince audiences that the film isn't true--even though it mostly is! Individual details are far-fetched (such as the assassination scene and the Japanese soldiers dancing about and sword fighting like mad dogs) but this trial and the torture of the captured American fliers did actually occur following the Doolittle Raid.

The biggest pluses in the film are the acting by most of the American crew members--particularly the fine effort by the always professional Dana Andrews--though the rest of the guys also were very effective. The biggest minus was that occasionally the film is a bit sticky with such obvious and over the top messages--it sure ain't subtle! Seeing this film remade today (and including the actual disposition of the men--which wasn't known in 1944) would make for an interesting film and would justify a remake.

From the beginning I was impressed with Lewis Milestone's direction. The film opens in a darkened courtroom (although the emblem of the rising sun can be discerned on the far wall). A man in uniform enters and switches on the lights. Another man enters with a pitcher of water and begins preparing for the ritual of the judges' entrance. The first man begins opening the window blinds. This leisurely accumulation of detail gives these moments a documentary feel that lends verisimilitude to the events that follow. Even when the American heroes respond to their captors with caustic patriotic speeches, there's still an aura of realism that makes it hard to classify this movie along with the cruder propaganda efforts of the times.