User reviews

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.

To borrow a couple of adjectives from its own theatrical trailer, this is one of the most "original" and "gripping" movies about WWII, made by Hollywood's 'Chronicler Of War' par excellence Milestone. It deals with a group of eight American airmen who bail out over China after having bombed Japan; betrayed to the enemy, they find themselves on trial for murder – to which reporters with Communist sympathies from various countries are "invited" to perform jury duty! – since the Japs claim that their targets had been hospitals (which they're ready to corroborate by means of newsreel footage depicting the carnage, even if jury members readily admit amongst themselves to be fake!) rather than munitions factories as the Yanks assert. However, despite the physical and mental torture to which the latter are subjected, all doesn't go smoothly for their accusers: first an opportunistic Chinese Governor, who's a prime witness, is assassinated (by his own upstanding son) in the courtroom and, then, when the Japanese Navy and Military (represented by the wily yet over-confident Richard Loo) themselves lock horns over the means of transportation used by the Americans (which would imply that one or the other was slack in its defense duties!). Being a wartime production, the tone is heavily jingoistic: peppered with homespun recollections of the prisoners' lives back home and displays of camaraderie every time one of them returns from his 'cross-examination', to say nothing of defiance in the face of their impending execution. Milestone's handling never strikes a false note throughout and has selected a sturdy cast besides: led by decent captain Dana Andrews (though the actor preferred to conceal his own operatic background for fear of being typecast, we do get to hear him sing here albeit in unison with his fellow soldiers), Italo-American Richard Conte, youngster Farley Granger and tough-but-compassionate Sam Levene. That said, the film is equally notable for its moody lighting (by top Fox cinematographer Arthur Miller) and inspired art direction (with proceedings mostly confined to the courtroom, prison cell and interrogation room).

Lieutenants Dean E. Hallmark, Robert J. Meder, Chase Nielsen, William G. Farrow, Robert L. Hite, and George Barr; and Corporals Harold A. Spatz and Jacob DeShazer were captured in April 1942. On August 15, 1942, the United States was told by the Swiss Consulate General in Shanghai; that Doolittle Raiders were prisoners of the Japanese at Police Headquarters in Shanghai, China. This movie is based on the real trial August 28, 1942 by the Imperial Japanese Military. The Americans were never told the charges. The Japanese announced the eight men were sentenced to death. The Japanese said a few of them had received commutation of their sentences by the Emperor Hirohito to life imprisonment. October 14, 1942, Hallmark, Farrow and Spatz were told they were to die and allowed to write a final letter to their family. At 5:30 pm on October 15, 1942, the three were executed by a firing squad at Shanghai's Public Cemetery Number 1. The bodies were cremated. The ashes were never sent to the families in the United States.

The other five captured airmen remained in solitary confinement, tortured and starved, these men contracted dysentery and beriberi, their health deteriorating. In 1943, they were moved from Shanghai to Nanking. December 1, 1943, Meder died of the mistreatment. The remaining four men, Nielsen, Hite, Barr and DeShazer survived until they were freed by American troops in August 1945 after the surrender of the Japan.

In February 1946, a War Crimes trial was held in Shanghai. Four Imperial Japanese officers were tried for the mistreatment and executions of the Doolittle Raiders. All were found guilty. Three of them were sentenced to five years at hard labor, the fourth to a nine-year sentence. The light sentences were met with outrage in the United States, that the Japanese soldiers were let off with murder. Hirohito in 1975, during a visit to the United States, refused to answer questions about the executed Doolittle Flyers.

This movie was popular with the American public in 1944.

Worth seeing for WWII and film history fans, this occasionally sappy film buys into the Hollywood anti-Japanese jingo-ism of the war while throwing in a few interesting curve balls.

The story hangs on a show-trial of a captured American bomber crew for the charge of murder for killing civilians during the bombing of Tokyo in 1942. Anticipating the Nuremburg trials, the plot is a daring concept for a time (1943) when the U.S. still had no clear idea how the war would end!

While the main characters adhere to the standard PR depiction of the Japanese as evil, cruel and hate-filled, there are interesting exceptions in the margins, particularly a kameo by Key Luke as a sailor who survives a shipwreck. He has to provide testimony that will either embarrass the army General prosecuting the case or his own Navy superiors. Tangential to be sure, but even this much sympathy for the Yellow Devil is almost unique for the period.

It also goes to great pains to show that not all orientals are evil, with an extended subplot involving a Chinese soldier who dies a hero's death.

Certainly, all the characters are highly emblematic - the Chinese soldier and his collaborationist father represent the divided China of the war, the foreign diplomats for whose benefit the show-trial is being conducted are all straight from central casting (note the conflicted Russian, not yet at war with Japan, who is driven finally to reject his own government!), and the crew are the typical rah-rah war movie accumulation of types and accents. But there are several extremely intelligent debates on war and responsibility to duty scattered through the film, along with a grudging admiration for the Japanese people as strong-willed and able to suffer deprivation for the sake of their ideals.

Ultimately, the movie is carried mostly by the charm of the American crew, who manage to get through the most appallingly sentimental parts of the film with their dignity intact.

1944 WWII propaganda movie about the fliers who were captured after the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo Japan on April 18, 1942. Of the 80 US fliers involved 71 including Gen. Doolittle made it to safety and of the eight that were captured by the Japanese; three not all eight like in the movie "The Purple Heart" were executed.

Ridiculously played out in a Shang-Hai courtroom with the captured US fliers having the run of the courtroom. Breaking out with bombastic and patriotic laden speeches as the almost befuddled Japanese justices and military men stand open-mouth and stunned. Making it look like that they were so impressed by the Americans eloquent oratory that they were left completely speechless.

I doubt that this was in real life but in the movie the American fliers represent almost every nationality, with the exception of a black and Hispanic,that you can find. Understandingly back in 1944 the movie had to overdo the goodness of the captured US fliers and at the same time dehumanize the evil and treacherous "Japs", but was so outrageous that watching it now the movie almost made the "Japs" look good at the expense of the captured and heroic Americans. There was also a scene in the movie where it supported the killing of one's father by a son in favor of strangers, the Americans, who testified against them. This was like the movies made in the 1950's like "My Son John" were it was encouraged for parents to turn over their sons and daughters to the police or FBI if they suspected that they were communists. Even if they were not a threat to the countries security but only talked about how great it, communism, was.

One scene that seemed to be completely overlooked in the movie that the film makers put in trying to show how insane the Japanese were and how normal and feeling the Americans were was the comparison between Japanese Gen. Mitsubi, Richard Loo, and the US. Gen. MacAthur. Gen. Mitsubi shoots himself when he can't get the US fliers to admit that they came from the aircraft carrier Hornet, which they did, because he felt that he fell down on his job. This without getting anybody under his command killed or wounded. All Gen. Mitsubi wanted was to make a point and the general is made in the movie to look like a crazed lunatic. Earlier in the movie when it's reported that Corrigador fell to the Japanese and that Gen. MacAthur fled and left his troops behind the captured US fliers acted as if Gen. MacAthur did a great and heroic act. As pilot Capt. Ross, Dana Andrews, remarked:"The General did what he had to do and we'll do what we have to do" which was saying nothing to their Japanese captors about where they came from, the Hornet,and getting executed! Now that's whats meant by rank has it's privileges.

The Japanese judges tried very hard to prove that the Americans bombed Japanese civilian targets, and as far as I know about the Doolittle Raid they didn't, to make the US look bad to the world and trumped up evidence to make it look that way.In reality when we look back at the massive B29 fire-bombing attacks on Japan it should have been an open and shut case for them without making up the facts.

Hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese were killed in fire bombing of Japanese cities that had nothing to do with the Japanese war effort but everything to do with terrorizing the Japanese population. An action that was condemned by the Nuremberg War Crime Tribune as a major war crime and had hundreds of German and Japanese officials who were convicted of it executed or jailed for life. Also the atomic attacks on Japan in August 1945 with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagagsaki are now believed to have been totally uncalled for. Since we know now that Japan was secretly trying to surrender to the allies at the time and that even Gen. MacAthur and Gen. Eisenhower were against using them on Japan. It now turns out that the dropping of the atomic bombs was a political not military decision, to impress USSR dictator Joseph Stalin, by the then US President Harry S.Truman.

More of the same propaganda junk from the glorious war years. These fabulous flyboys weren't about to let the nasty Nips break them. They were loyal! They were men! They were AMERICANS!! You gotta love the ending when even the 2 braindead flyers sternly and gallantly marched to the firing squad amid a rousing rendition of "Into the Wild Blue Yonder". This is the kind of bilge designed to load up the foxholes with patriotic lunkheads ready to give their all for the good ol' red, white, and blue. Unfortunately, by the time they discover in the real world that it was only a movie it's way too late to go home. Buy, hey, it was a fun movie and worth seeing.

The story of the fate of a captured American bomber crew from the first air raid on Tokyo. Dana Andrews final speech (taken from a Portugese reporter's news story) to the court is the most moving ever made in a motion picture. Purple Heart produced such a strong emotional response that it was banned in many American cities as detrimental to the war effort.

In its technical and narrative form, this film is unmistakably a product of 1944, and that historical positioning is not incidental-it's fundamental. Shot in the midst of World War II, during a period when the American home front was being saturated with newsreels, military briefings, and ration cards, the movie emerges as more than a cinematic artifact; it is a cultural weapon of morale. What distinguishes it from other films of its time, however, is not just its propagandistic edge-nearly all wartime cinema bears some mark of that-but how unflinchingly it commits to dramatizing a single, intensely focused wartime episode, infused with a solemnity that borders on liturgical.

Cinematically, the film adopts an aesthetic of moral clarity rather than visual flourish. The camera work is mostly restrained, deliberate, often emphasizing the rigidity of confinement and the geometry of power. Shadows play heavily into the mise-en-scène, but never with the lyrical ambition of a film noir-rather, the darkness serves to constrict the space, reflecting psychological compression. Close-ups are frequent, but never sentimental; they are used to interrogate the moral fiber of the characters rather than elicit empathy. In that regard, the visual language recalls the severe precision of Destination Tokyo (1943), though this film dispenses with that film's sense of exploratory momentum in favor of procedural, almost judicial, pacing. The courtroom becomes a crucible, and the mise-en-scène makes that crucible tangible: claustrophobic, stark, and unrelentingly still.

The performances operate within a narrow emotional register, but that is not to be confused with stiffness. The actors project not so much fear or pain, but a sort of iron-bound dignity that feels deeply aligned with the movie's ideological aims. There's a constant interplay between defiance and restraint in their physical presence-barely a twitch or tear, which makes those rare moments of emotional rupture all the more potent. This is not naturalistic acting by modern standards; it's theatrical, stylized, and deliberately emblematic. Yet it functions with complete sincerity within the dramaturgical framework of the period. There's no room for psychological ambiguity here-each character is a vessel of wartime idealism, carefully shaped and lit to radiate resolve.

That said, the representation of the Japanese characters veers sharply into caricature, undermining the overall gravitas the film otherwise strives to maintain. Their depiction lacks the internal logic or humanity afforded to the American protagonists, rendering them as exaggerated, theatrical villains rather than plausible adversaries. The result is a binary so stark that it can momentarily disrupt the film's sense of verisimilitude. While the stylization of the American characters supports the moral clarity of the narrative, the grotesque reduction of the Japanese figures moves beyond ideological necessity into a kind of racialized pantomime. This is, of course, consistent with the wartime cinematic vocabulary of the era, but nonetheless limits the film's capacity to be read today as anything more than allegorical. The contrast is especially notable when compared to The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), where-even within a similarly polarized framework-the enemy is granted psychological dimension and strategic rationale. In this film, the Japanese figures are not opponents with agency but foils for American virtue, which inevitably weakens the dramatic tension and risks condescending to the very stakes it seeks to elevate.

The film's use of sound design is subtle but pointed. There's an overwhelming silence in many sequences that is never empty; it is the sound of withheld force. When music does appear, it doesn't soothe but underscores the stakes. There's a kind of sonic minimalism at work that recalls The Story of G. I. Joe (1945), although the latter offers a broader emotional palette. The difference is one of ideological function: while The Story of G. I. Joe attempts to humanize the anonymous infantryman through lyrical fatalism, this film is far more procedural, using its narrative structure to model ethical behavior under pressure. In that sense, it has more in common with The Navy Comes Through (1942), though it eschews that film's kinetic naval spectacle for a static, psychological tension.

The script itself-crafted with a clear didactic agenda-eschews ambiguity. This is not a film interested in the gray zones of wartime morality. Every word, every gesture, is calibrated to reflect a larger truth: that justice, even in the face of grotesque imbalance, can become a form of resistance. That message, in 1944, was not merely comforting; it was politically essential. The American public, still reeling from Pearl Harbor and midway through the Pacific campaign, needed to see its servicemen not only as fighters but as ethical exemplars. That the film achieves this through an economy of action and a surfeit of silence is a testament to its craftsmanship. There is no battlefield, but the stakes are lethal; there is no gunfire, but the violence is omnipresent.

Lighting plays a central thematic role, often isolating characters in pools of illumination that evoke not only interrogation but spiritual judgment. The visual motif of light as both exposure and protection threads through the film's compositions. The interiors are rendered with a near-expressionistic severity, though never descending into aestheticism for its own sake. The visual palette remains functional, serving the film's ideological clarity. There is no attempt at the elegiac tone that Twelve O'Clock High (1949) would later introduce into the air-war subgenre; here, solemnity is weaponized, turned into an instrument of patriotic instruction.

It is also worth noting how the film's themes reflect the political anxieties and ambitions of the moment. By 1944, the narrative of American virtue had to be consolidated-not just for those fighting overseas, but for those at home questioning the costs. This film's emphatic moral binaries-innocence versus tyranny, honor versus cowardice-are not signs of naïveté, but calculated answers to a wartime rhetorical need. The film functions, then, as both story and sermon. Its depiction of enemy forces is unapologetically dehumanized, and that, too, aligns with its purpose; nuance is deliberately sacrificed to reinforce the stakes of total war. It shares this approach with Back to Bataan (1945), though unlike that film, which veers into overt action and nationalism, this film retains a kind of austere, judicial solemnity throughout.

What might be seen now as its narrative limitations-lack of complexity, absence of character development, binary morality-are, in truth, artifacts of its era and mission. This is cinema forged in the crucible of war, and it never pretends to be anything else. It demands not analysis but allegiance, and its artistry lies in how seamlessly it merges technical restraint with ideological rigor. While modern viewers may bristle at its lack of psychological depth or cinematic dynamism, those very absences are the conditions of its power. The film does not aim to entertain, nor even to educate-it aims to affirm, to solidify, to hold a line. And in 1944, that line was both moral and mortal.

The Purple Heart was a very good movie for the times. The people who brand it "sappy" and "propagandistic", or the brain dead person who chortles about "patriotic lunkheads" enlisting in the armed forces because of this movie were not alive during that period. They know nothing about the horror of total war. The survival of this nation was in doubt, and men were dying or being captured by sadistic Japanese who murdered them while in captivity. Every parent dreaded the telegram delivery boy, thinking what it might mean. Ever heard of the Bataan Death March? This movie was a fact based story about captured Americans from the Doolittle raid, in which several American Airmen were tried as War Criminals, and some of them were executed. Such a show trial was not repeated, but it showed the beastiality of the Bushido warriors. Japan should hang it's head in shame. The performances were dead right for war time, and Dana Andrews was superb, there were few cliches, it was mostly truth. Mr Bartalotti was right, there was a great deal in a short time. A True achievement. For the silly few who worry about propaganda, remember we were at war, and remember Pearl Harbor.

I felt that this was a film that hasn't aged too well over the years. It feels quite laborious in its approach, going over lengthy back story and then moving to a court trial which seems to go on forever. The ensemble cast is excellent and it's astonishing to see Dana Andrews and the others looking so youthful here, but I felt that it needed more momentum to get going. The ending is suitably moving but otherwise this is merely so-so.

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.

This is a beautiful movie. The story is about what happens to the captured crew of an American Army Air Corps bomber in Japan during WWII.

The performances of the actors are excellent and deeply felt (remember that it was filmed during the war). Once you have watched the first 30 minutes, you must stay to learn their fate at the hands of the Japanese.

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.

This is the quintessential World War Two movie. It has heroic American airmen, a sinister enemy, righteous indignation, and jingoistic dialogue that probably is unmatched by any other movie of its genre. The dialogue between Captain Ross and his interrogator, who wants, more then anything else, to find out where the Americans launched their attack, emphasizes the point that America is angry and will stop at nothing to defeat what it considers to be an evil enemy. And when the Americans are put on trial, their resolve deepens, even as they are subjected to humiliation and torture. It's easy to dismiss this movie as mere World War Two propaganda, with two-dimensional portrayals and a slanted, pro-war point of view, yet such a conclusion would fail to take into consideration the fine acting, fast-paced action, compelling story and powerful dialogue that makes this movie more than just a celluloid polemic, but a credible work of art.

A grim, down-beat story of downed American pilots in captivity during the early years of WWII. An outstanding cast, high-lighted by the off-beat casting of Don Barry as one of the pilots forced to undergo torture. A truly great movie, this one is a bit depressing at times.

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.

Probably the strangest film to come from any of the combatants in World War II, doubly so as it's the work of the director of 'All Quiet on the Western Front"; here adopting a dreamlike stylisation rather his usual gritty realism.

Although plainly inspired by the Moscow show trials of the thirties, in retrospect it's ironic that the defendants in the actual Tokyo trials were the Japanese themselves. With hindsight the use of film as evidence in court anticipates what happened at Nuremberg, the maltreatment and brainwashing of prisoners what happened in Cold War Eastern Europe, the trial of the airmen what happened to Gary Powers and the crew of the Pueblo and possibly the final reckoning currently being anticipated in store for Putin for his activities in Ukraine. (A further irony is that Torben Meyer who in 1961 played one of the defendants in 'Judgement at Nuremberg' here appears as a representative of the Swiss Red Cross.)

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.

When "The Purple Heart" was shown in my hometown theater during the heat of World War II, it served as a reminder of what being a captive of the Japanese during this time frame was all about.

Although some who were not around during this war may tag the picture as being "a little overdone", many who were placed in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps ... and lived to tell it ... will refer to this Twentieth-Century Fox release as "reels-of-authenticity; chilling realism."

The decision to make the film in black-and-white, hinting at shadows of horror, adds to the impact of the terrible subject. Director Lewis Milestone was excellent, as always, and the acting by the cast, from Fox's stable of available war-time male stars, was exceptional.

Incidentally, Don "Red" Barry was loaned to Fox by Republic Pictures for this movie. It was his dream that he would be contracted to the bigger, more important Twentieth-Century Fox after "The Purple Heart" was released. However, Republic's owner ... Herbert J. Yates ... considered the movie to be an important boost to Barry's marquee-value as a star from the studio's barn of "Saturday-Westerns". Don "Red" Barry would remain under contract to Republic ... making those good old "B" westerns ... for the rest of his professional career.

First, let me start by saying that I was ten years old when this film was made. I knew nothing of the war. In retrospect, I have some confusion and a touch of anger when reading some of todays reviews. Most war films offer a message to make their point. Films such as Platoon,numerous Vietnam epics, Korean War films such as Pork Chop Hill.and The Steel Helmet all deliver messages in fine fashion.As a lad of eighteen, I was influenced by Sands of Iwo Jima to join the Marine Corps.Im sure it had the same effect on a lot of other teen agers. Now to The Purple Heart. Made during the war years. it tells of a bomber crew downed in China after a raid on Tokyo. Dana Andrews is the stalwart Captain who delivers the Message at the trials conclusion. As they march out to their doom, strains of Wild Blue Yonder swell in the background. Sure its propaganda, but things like that were needed during the war years. The cast, including Richard Loo as a Japanese General are uniformaly excellent.Under Lewis Milestones direction, this movie becomes a minor classic. To those who nit pick about the errors in these films, take a break! Enjoy them as a vital part of history. Many of them served a purpose and served them well.