Escape to Paradise

American movie moguls James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff usually had a good idea of what would bring in the drive in audience, so it's mystifying why they would pick up this cheap Filipino movie for an American release. Unless the rights to the movie were as cheap as the film itself. Anyway, the movie is a big letdown. The main problem with the movie is how utterly dull it is. There is far too much talk, and despite all this talk, it doesn't manage to flesh out any of the characters particularly well. What little action there is in the movie has absolutely no bite or excitement. About the only thing the movie does right is photographing the movie in black and white, which not only masks some of the cheap nature of the movie, it also makes the World War II setting a little more believable than had it been shot in color. Only for film historians with an interest in Filipino cinema.

Lost Battalion can't decide what it is: it starts out with stock footage accompanied by documentary style narration, turns into a war drama, and ends up as a love story with tragic consequences. Shot in The Phillipines by the prolific Eddie Romero, the film benefits from location footage but is let down in the story department, as the Japanese invaders are little more than a footnote to the Diane Jergens/Leopoldo Salcedo romantic storyline. Sadly the film cannot bring itself to allow an 'interracial' relationship to flourish, as only one of the loving couple survive the film (I'll let the reader try to guess which one it is). Technically the film looks okay--once the stock footage padding is out of the way (the filmmakers even represent Japanese soldiers with film of American marines in action!). Cinematographer Felipe Sacdalan, a Romero regular and FAMAS winner, manages a few artful and elegant shots amidst the jungle, and top acting credits go to Johnny Monteiro as the rebellious Bruno, a colourful character who seems to have strayed into this film after leaving the set of Treasure of Sierra Madre. Nothing special overall, but a strange little film with minor interest nonetheless.