Corregidor (1943)

CORREGIDOR is your usual gung-ho American WW2 film set in the Philippines. Like many films which utilise that theatre of war as a backdrop, it goes for a B-movie approach and as such is only interesting as a dated curio, although it's worth remembering that this was made contemporaneous with the war itself so there are propaganda elements here.Basically, the story of the film is to chart the progress of doctors, nurses, and soldiers as they exist on an island that is constantly being besieged by Japanese troops. CORREGIDOR is rather episodic in nature, featuring some frenetic battle action followed by a lull filled by some light humour and romance, and then going back to a battle around ten minutes later. It's basic stuff, lacking any decent actors to do their roles justice, and even Otto Kruger feels hammy. Some parts of the film do tell rather than show and it all gets a bit preachy at the end.

Good subject (Corregidor under siege) crapped up by an apparently nonexistent script, a ridiculous story, cartoon-like fighting scenes, and monkey-ugly villains.Every scene has something wrong with it. The defenders are running out of water, but everybody is clean shaven and they all have clean uniforms--with neckties! They are on emergency rations, but everybody looks very well fed. And near the end, the nurses make a getaway on the last plane out of Corregidor (pretty good trick when there weren't any planes left on Corregidor). This plane is a flying boat, which is what is sounds like--a big, floating target extremely unlikely to have survived the siege. This was a commercial plane that didn't have any guns, except this one did--a water-cooled machine gun in the tail--without water. And of course, this is where the tail gunner, one of our heroes, is killed successfully defending the getaway plane against an attacking Japanese plane piloted by a monkey look-alike.Production values are nonexistent. Good films have been made on limited budgets, but this isn't one of them.

Pants, baggy, sweaty pants. Not even good for the WWII 'pump up the home front so they buy bonds' circuit. It seems like a combination of two scripts, neither of them very good. Is it a love story? Maybe for the first few minutes. Is it a war movie? Sort of, in that there are guys getting shot in a cartoon fashion. This movie doesn't seem to know what it wants to do.An attempt is made to show the fall of Corregidor but somebody wanted to add an element of a love triangle. It didn't work then and it didn't work for Pearl Harbor. At least Pearl took a lot of time to try to make both sides work. Corregidor didn't even bother to make one side work. I cared more about Hey Dutch and Pinky than I cared about any of the three main characters.Add in really lousy stock footage of various US planes being passed off as Japanese planes and this thing screams mass production. It also whispers silent movie, like the one part where the Doc goes in to do some surgery and there's no more gloves. It's all pantomimed, like a silent. Except this is 1943! If this had been made in the 30s I could forgive a lot of the flaws but this pig was made well into the 40s and there's just no excuse other than being a cheap knock off. Frankly I find it insulting to the men and women of Corregidor. It should have a real remake except most everybody that was there is probably dead by now so all you'd get is more Hollyworld hogwash.2/10

Recently distributed in DVD, this movie was a disappointment. It takes a unique tact to bring noncombatants into a war film; an idea that should have been a basis for a great story. The missionary doctor and the brave bride hardly get any character development throughout the film. The story is one of a dedicated missionary doctor in the Philippines, who is surprised by the arrival of a former lover. On 6 December, 1941, she has followed the missionary doctor to marry him. He is surprised as he had disregarded the letter, being busy in his research. But, her real love is an Army doctor, currently stationed at Corrigidor. The Japanese attack happens at the close of the wedding ceremony. That begins a 600 miles journey through the jungle, with terribly directed combat scenes and with poorly dramatized suffering. Although we expect some period gloss over suffering and combat, the scenes are very poorly presented. At Corrigidor, the battle progresses, the three friends/lovers are reunited, and the devastating losses mount. I'll leave the ending to the viewer, but it is convincing neither in tone nor emotion. In 1943, there were probably not many technical advisers on the last scenes at Corrigidor, but suffice it to say, the last departees were not leaving on C-47s. I appreciate period pieces, and allow for the oversights, glamorization of the 1940's scripts and productions. And the patriotic message was both expected and deserved by the men and women who struggled on Corrigidor and throughout the Philippines. But, this is just poorly done, and loses all its punch. Too bad for a potentially great story line, in an honestly heroic setting. Having visited Corrigidor, I was hopeful for a powerful, though period based piece. The film was disappointing on all counts.