A Baia da Emboscada

For standards of movie making decades later, the movie has its flaws but if you look past that, the plot is good and so is the acting. I enjoyed the nostalgia look at war movies where it was made close / somewhat close to when it happened and present day mannerisms, colloquial expressions and revisionist haven't taken too much of a overriding theme.

The actors in this movie are thin which to me reflects what a true soldier living on rations would look like, they don't use foul language in every sentence nor do they talk about sex. The plot shows Americans with dedication to duty, callous to the death around them and respect for each other except for the character, Pfc James Grenier, played by James Mitchum. As you watch the movie you go from disliking Grenier to rooting for him as all of the members of the mission are killed off.

Ambush Bay is not a bad little WW2 "B"movie auctioneer. It blends your standard Pacific theatre war movie, with the old horror trope of our heroes being knocked off one by one letting us wonder who might survive if any at all. Unfortunately that concept is pretty much immediately undermined by the director choosing to use an unneeded narration, which should give the alert viewer a strong hint as to the final outcome. Ambush Bay is full of little positives and negatives, such as this.

It was filmed entirely on location in The Philippines, where the story is set, which is definitely a bonus for a clearly low budget feature. But then there is quite a bit of not particularly well-lit night-time cinematography in the jungle, during which it's pretty difficult to clearly see what action is occurring.

The story involves an elite unit of American marines undertaking a secret mission (Is there any other type?) to a Japanese - held island. They are to make contact with an American spy with vital information which may well affect the result of the war in the Pacific. The trouble is the spy works in a Japanese "tea-house" (pleasure resort for soldiers) and the Americans have no clue to the spy's identity, except a code-name. And beginning with their landing on the island they begin to suffer casualties.

Most associated with the movie had television pedigrees: director Ron Winston, (This was his debut cinema release.) lead, Hugh O"Brian and many of the support cast, including James Mitchum (Yes, Robert's son! The physical resemblance is there, but that's where it ends. Where Dad made acting look easy, Junior makes it look trying.) The arguable exception is Mickey Rooney, who whilst putting in a welcome appearance, is the least likely physical specimen one might expect to see on a mission such as this.

We get very little characterisation in Ambush Bay. Many of the soldiers are killed off, before we even know their names, some it has to be said, in rather silly fashions, for supposedly elite combat troops. Speaking of fashions, I'm not sure why some of them seemed to be wearing baseball caps. It never seemed to be explained. Mitchum's is the most developed character, playing a duck out of water. Drafted into the mission involuntarily because of his radio communication skills, he completes the old trope of a rookie soldier thrown into a situation beyond his control.

Ambush Bay doesn't aim high (even that title??) but what it does do, it does OK. There is plenty of action (some of it, literally unbelievable), a fair degree of suspense and I have to say, that I have seen far worse in terms of entertainment value.

I have seen the movie before years ago on TV and I don't remember much about it from that time. However, this time the first thing I notices all through out the film was-WHATS WITH THE HATS! Each character wore a different style or color hat. I guess the producers wanted the audience to be able to distinguish each actor by the color and style of the hats. Hugh O"Brian was a former Marine so he probably refused to wear an unauthorized COVER (see I did use the right term). His had the symbol in the front. In addition, Mitchem wore jeans. I can't see a real Marine doing that and I also can't see a real Marine talking in such a disrespectful manner. He would have gotten that beaten out of him the first day in boot camp. Me being a gunnut I did notice the man with the M! Garand having the side mounted scope on it (M1D). That really surprised me. When the story opened and the comment was made that the man was an expert with the Garand, he would have carried a M1D and sure enough in the story he did and he used it. All in all it was a good war movie. It was not Platoon but good.

A crack team of US Marines is sent to one of the small Phillipine islands because there's an agent there who's got some big news, but can't get it out. Almost from the beginning Captain Clem Stadler is killed in some contact with a Japanese patrol. That leaves command of the mission to fall on Sergeant Hugh O'Brian.

Ambush Bay managed to hit all the war movie clichés without a miss in its running time. One of the most prominent was the new guy on the mission, in this case radioman James Mitchum. He was a last minute replacement and with the exception of Mickey Rooney, he's not well regarded by the seasoned Marines on the mission.

I can't say what it is or how the team deals with the information, but let's just say they've got one big old surprise cooked up for Admiral Halsey's task force.

The movie was shot entirely on location in the Phillipines and the scenery is quite lush. I'm sure that the promise of a tropical vacation might have induced a few of our American players to work in this film.

I feel either ambushed or just plain bushed right about now.

Much of this film takes place in the dark. So it is impossible to make out what is going on,which is rather frustrating. However what I did see looked cheap and cheesy. The Mitchum character was simply ridiculous. Why was he wearing a red cap in the jungle. Its all very predictable and second rate.