Corregidor (1943)
3/10
WWII on the cheap!
9 August 2016
The Battle of Corregidor involved hundreds of thousands of troops and tons of airplanes, tanks and ships. Tiny little Atlantis Pictures tried to capture it...on the cheap. Instead of hundreds of thousands of troops, you might see a dozen or so. And instead of modern equipment, they use a lot of stock footage--though at least many of the planes are actually Japanese (unlike many other US films which used Dauntless or Texan aircraft and tried to pass them off as Japanese Mitsubishi fighters). I say many because sometimes the clips are all wrong...but at least they're more right than wrong! As for the backgrounds, they are VERY cheap and the jungle set is almost laughably bad.

The story involves a couple of doctors who, one minute are going to break up and the next they get married. Soon their honeymoon turns crap when the Japanese attack...and they spend the rest of the film trying to survive. She's really in love with another guy--so you can guess where it goes next. Otto Kruger, Donald Woods and Elissa Landi are fine in the movie, though the trio aren't exactly leading stars (especially Landi)...which isn't surprising with an Atlantis film. They simply couldn't afford a Clark Gable, Jimmy Cagney or Pat O'Brien.

So is it any good? Not especially. Mostly the Japanese just line up waiting to be easily shot...and if Corregidor was really that easy the United States/Filipino forces would have won that battle!! But at least the Japanese aren't drooling animals like they were in many other American films of the day* (entertaining...yes...but not exactly realistic). Everyone tries their best but with the film's many limitations it manages only to be slightly entertaining and not much more.

*I've seen some Japanese and German wartime films and the Americans are every bit as subhuman or one-dimensional in them as well.
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