Jungle Patrol

This film is low budget and stage bound but it transcends its limitations and delivers an interesting little piece of offbeat drama. It's not really a fantasy but it has overtones of "Death Takes a Holiday." The story centers around a small outpost of American pilots on an island north of Australia whose mission is to stop Japanese air attacks. One day a USO girl arrives on the island. The rest of her troop is supposed to arrive later but that doesn't happen. She proceeds to put on a one-girl USO show so the guys won't be disappointed. During the few days she's there she comes to know there is a strange secret that begins to look like destiny. The film ends oddly without explaining itself and the audience is left wondering what it was supposed to mean. Even with this weirdness it is a WWII movie about doing your duty and living through a difficult time as best you can. It occasionally feels like an Outer Limits episode but it's memorable and worth seeing.

Another reviewer said that this was a film for the radio generation, a generation that did serve in World War II that got its entertainment from the radio, a generation that got the words and used its imagination. That is partially the case, but Jungle Patrol if you look at the credits is from a play and the sets do not betray the stage origins of the product. It bears a strong resemblance to Ceiling Zero from before the war and Command Decision which is post war.

When I wrote my review for Ceiling Zero I felt it was too stagy, that is not the same for Command Decision. But both of those films were A products from Warner Brothers and MGM respectively. 20th Century Fox did not invest too much in Jungle Patrol and it shows.

It's one of the weirdest war films I've ever seen. A squadron of Army Air Corps planes and their pilots and support have had an incredible run of luck. Like a whole squadron of Memphis Belles, no one has been killed and they've run up quite a score of downed Japanese.

They also get a surprise visit from a USO performer Kristine Miller who obliges with an impromptu show. More impromptu than normally as the rest of her troupe is delayed and grounded. The men are appreciative, but are somber bunch. This run of luck has to give out sometimes, the odds have to catch up.

Such people as Arthur Franz and Richard Jaeckel went on to some solid careers as did others in the cast. The lack of star names gives the film a grounding in reality. Had it a few more production values I might rate it higher. Still it is a strange and haunting film worth a look.

This starts out with a degree of promise. A group of war-weary soldiers are facing overwhelming odds as they try to defend a remote island airstrip from the invading Japanese. "Mace" (Arthur Franz) commands this group of brave men but sadly, for the plot, he soon becomes romantically embroiled with a visiting forces entertainer "Jean" (Kristine Miller) and at this point the score turns all violin-led and the plot deteriorates into a rather soppy melodrama that rather negates the courageous story that we started with. It was obviously made for domestic consumption to bolster post-war audiences, but somehow the lightweight cast and rather wordy dialogue drown out what action scenes there actually are, leaving us with some interesting audio descriptions of the dogfighting overhead - and they sound authentic enough - but with little else. It's decently enough produced, but is little better than a standard afternoon B-feature that passes the time all too slowly.

This film was geared to the radio generation.

It's a flight action film where the combat "footage" is strictly verbal. The plot centers on an U. S. Army Air Force squadron stationed at a remote airfield somewhere in or near Australia during the latter part of WWII. The outfit has been invincible. They have shot down a fair amount of Japanese aircraft without loosing one pilot. If I remember correctly, they're flying P40's – a plane that was at its' best before the war. There is a romantic side to the plot, but I was too young to pay it much attention to it.

A cast of feature and B actors give solid performances. Nearly all of them went on to extended careers in the movies and television.

The radio reports from the air battles are vivid and well played. The 1948 audience had very little trouble visualizing the pitched combat. To most of us the pictures conjured up by the verbal descriptions were much more life like than anything that TV could offer at that time. "---------------- I repeat. They've got a plane, much better that the Zero!------------------------"

Yes. We knew how to see the action!

Some notes: 1948 gave us other military action films that survive today only on television. "Beyond Glory" with Alan Ladd is a story about a decorated Army Capt. who enrolls at West Point after the war. Look for an early Audie Murphy appearance. "Fighter Squadron" staring Edmond O'Brian & Robert Stack was also released during that peacetime year. Lots of P-47 combat film here.

I would like to see all three on DVD.

An unusual war film, primarily based on dialogues, seeking a psychological depth of the main characters. It is a low-budget production that theatrically explores the daily lives of a group of aviators whose routine is disrupted by the arrival of a singer from the army's entertainment service. Through this narrative device, the film depicts the harsh realities of the aviators' daily lives, alternating between combat and rest.

The characters are quite believable, and the dialogues are well-structured, although there is a certain naivety in the storytelling that, despite being strange, creates an atmosphere of dreaminess that characterizes the film. It's true that everyone here is a good guy, courteous gentlemen in the presence of an angelic lady and the prototype of the perfect American girlfriend. This is one of the less interesting aspects of the film, which could have otherwise achieved a higher cinematic level thanks to its unique and peculiar sound narration, based on dialogues as if it were a radio drama.