Aurora Sangrenta

As a patriotic exercise in morale rising this film does a good job even though it is downbeat but as an opportunity to see an amazing group of actresses gathered together it can't be beat.

With its almost totally female cast, a very young Robert Mitchum just starting out is in and out of the picture in about a minute, this is a rare bird indeed. It's closest match would be The Women but unlike that high comedy cat fest this is a grim examination of the bravery of a group of dedicated nurses and volunteers during the seize of Bataan.

All the women are terrific but a few stand out. The great Margaret Sullavan in her second to last feature is fantastic as the outwardly tough nurse Smitty who is hiding many secrets. Ann Sothern and Joan Blondell are wisecracking experts and even under these tough conditions manage to brighten their scenes with plenty of snap. Two of the best character actresses the movies ever had, Fay Bainter and Connie Gilchrist, don't have much too do but inject their special touch into their scenes.

Each actress gets some type of spotlight moment and that makes this a memorable exercise. While surely actual field hospitals are much tougher than the one shown here the film still doesn't scrimp and try to make this seem glamorous in any way. These women are going through hell and the ending leaves little doubt that their struggles are far from over but that their courage helped to win the war. A fine piece of entertainment.

What makes the 1943 WWII drama,"Cry,Havoc", offbeat is that it deals with a subject of the war that was rarely talked about then or now. The subject is the struggles and noble sacrifices of army nurses. "Cry,Havoc" was based on a fairly successful stage play, which explains why the film is set primarily in the confines of an underground bomb shelter. However,this doesn't make the film any the less powerful or intriguing. Lieutenant Mary "Smitty" Smith(Margaret Sullavan) desperately needs more experienced nurses at an army hospital in Bataan. Later,several volunteers arrive at Bataan and are willing to do their part for the war effort. Smitty is somewhat disappointed when see learns they aren't experienced. Although, the nurses are willing to work, they aren't fully aware of the hardships and destruction they'll have to face. The nurses' predicament becomes worse when two hospital buildings are hit and bombed by Japanese planes. Their chance of survival becomes extremely slim. This film paints an unglamorous and intense picture of war. Except for a few male extras,the majority of the cast is female. MGM put an ensemble cast of accomplished actresses in the leads. The cast includes: Margaret Sullavan, Ann Sothern, Joan Blondell, Fay Bainter, Marsha Hunt,and Heather Angel. Sothern stands out among the cast. Although, she was a gifted comedienne,Sothern had an immense talent in dramatic areas as well. Here she plays Pat Conlin, a tough, headstrong nurse,who thinks she knows the severity of war. She learns the hard way that isn't that easy and becomes a more sympathetic person because of it. Sullavan gives a fine,realistic performance as Lieutenant Smitty. She's a courageous character that is slowly dying of malignant Malaria. The rest of the cast give unique performances as well. This is one of Richard Thrope's better directorial efforts. He had directed the unsatisfying spy thriller,"Above Suspicion" and the dull sequel to the award-winning classic,"Mrs. Miniver". If you want to see a similarly-themed film,watch Paramount's "So,Proudly We Hail",also made in 1943. It is actually superior to "Cry,Havoc". It goes more in-depth about army nurses' sacrifices and is set in many different areas. "Cry,Havoc" is still very good and makes a compelling viewing experience. I give it an 8 out of 10.

Assorted characters trapped in a perilous situation, each with his or her own motivations, backstory, hopes and fears, the sort of story ("The Flight of the Phoenix," for instance) that I find irresistible. Thirteen characters, all women - men are entirely peripheral, practically stage props - find themselves trapped in a perilous situation. For that, any danger could do. Here the peril is war. Will they survive? Will they escape? We know (dramatic irony) that even if they survive they will not escape. Very little action occurs. It is not required. We understand the situation. No need to show it dramatically. The story, originally a stage play, is character driven. The situation encompasses everything. How will the women react, each according to her own character, its weaknesses and strengths? That is the strength of "Cry Havoc." That is what makes it compelling. If you prefer a war movie with non-stop action, or a wartime love story, switch to another channel.

It is a women's picture in the true sense, akin to "The Women," "Stage Door," "Tender Comrade," "Caged." Men make fleeting appearances. There is no love story. True, the unseen Lt. Holt is a presence. But he is not a focus. He serves merely to create dramatic tension, to illuminate the characters of two women, Smitty (Margaret Sullavan) and Pat (Ann Southern), whose mismatched personalities clash. The women reveal themselves as they confront the enveloping menace. Andra (Heather Angel) displays courage, Connie (Ella Raines) fear, Sue (Dorothy Morris) intensity, Flo (Marsha Hunt) serenity, Nydia (Diana Lewis) insouciance. The desperate Smitty alone and the commander Capt. Marsh (Fay Bainter), resigned to her fate, realize what is to come. Luisita, the only Philipina in the group (dancer and actress Fely Franquelli) also seems to know. Surrender approaches. Only she hides her face in despair.

We know more now than the screenwriters knew then. We know what awaits: the death march, mistreatment, possibly rape, evidence that only became apparent at the war's end. The Japanese, perhaps for that reason, but surprisingly for a war movie in wartime, are not completely demonized. They are hardly virtuous. They bomb hospitals. They strafe unoffending people bathing in a stream. Still, I have seen far worse denigration in other films. At the end a voice calls out in accented English for the women to surrender. It is not a caricatural voice, not lewd or sinister. The enemy, like the wounded soldiers and Lt. Holt, are a backdrop. The psychological focus remains on the protagonists, their characters, their response to a perilous situation.

"Cry Havoc" was not alone in 1943. Hollywood's other nurses-on-Bataan movie, "So Proudly We Hailed," came out in the same year. It cannot match "Cry Havoc." "So Proudly's" long, rambling tale, told through a flashback with a clinical, newsreel-like voiceover narration, is principally propaganda (the title gives it away) sweetened with a love story. The enemy are emphatically demonized. Men, and how to attract them, are the nurses' constant preoccupation. The story sends its heroine (Claudette Colbert) on an unblushingly sappy, soap-operatic journey. Husband is reported killed. Claudette succumbs to a morbid catatonic depression. She stares unblinking, for weeks. (It's not even clear when or how she enables herself to eat.) She wills herself to die. Of course, husband pops up alive and well, well enough to write her an interminable cloying letter, which we endure until the music mercifully swells to conclude proceedings. Nurse Olivia (Veronica Lake) hates the enemy with such implacable vehemence (her husband had the misfortune to be at Pearl Harbor) that she blows herself up to kill them, hand grenade tucked into her pocket. One film develops character, the other caricature. One, like Hitchcock's "Lifeboat" (Heather Angel was also briefly a passenger on that raft), transcends a war movie. The other remains a wartime curiosity.

During WWII, the various Hollywood studios made a bazillion war films aimed at bolstering the courage and resolve of the American public. Among these pictures were several whose stars were women--often involving nurses or entertainers working with the USO. Warner Brothers' entry into the genre was "Cry 'Havoc'", one that featured a motley crew of non-nurses pressed into service during during the fall of the Philippines. Among these women are the usual stereotypes, such the world-weary and cynical (Ann Sothern) and the stripper (Joan Blondell) and many, many others. The bottom line is that with the likes of Sothern, Blondell, Margaret Sullavan, Faye Bainter, Marsha Hunt, Ella Raines, Frances Gifford and many others, you can't help but have an excellent film. Not quite the distinguished female staff from "The Women"...but rather close...and each woman, on her own, would have been more than capable of carrying a picture.

So is it any good? Of course....the writing, sensationalism and schmaltz all work together to tell the women's side of the war...and tell it very well. It also helps that the film is NOT an ultra-positive look at the fall of Bataan but is rather realistic.

By the way, look for Robert Mitchem who has about a 5 second cameo...saying "I'm alright"...and then promptly dying.

Nurses, trained and un-, provide first aid and feminine comfort in a ravaged section of the Bataan front in MGM's 1943 filming of a 1942 stage flop. It's effectively adapted by Paul Osborn, and directed a bit stodgily by Richard Thorpe, who was one of Metro's longest-lasting and least-interesting contractees. It's stagy, limited mainly to the no-frills living quarters of the nurses, and, despite some snazzy quips coming from Ann Sothern and Joan Blondell and the comic-relief ditherings of Diana Lewis (who later married William Powell), a ditzy Southern blonde, pretty bleak. Margaret Sullavan is the no-nonsense workaholic, under commander Fay Bainter, and among several other worthy actresses, there's the always-worth-seeing Marsha Hunt, plus Heather Angel and Ella Raines. It's not subtle, and the main conflict, with Ann getting flirty with Maggie's man, feels a little inconsequential amid all the dying soldiers and bombs. But it's certainly effective propaganda, and the ending, a downbeat one, is a surprise.