(1960; b/w, English and Japanese without translation) A better title for director Phil Karlson's movie would have been The Pied Piper of Saipan. This true story (written by Gil Doud) begins with a schoolyard fight between Guy Gabaldon (Richard Eyer) and another kid - who taunts Guy with "You and your Jap friends" - broken up by the gym instructor, Kaz Une (George Shibata), who takes Guy home, only to discover that the kid (with a history of stealing and juvenile hall) is living on his own.

With Guy's father dead and his mother in the county hospital, Kaz, whose younger brother George (George Matsui) is Guy's friend, brings the 7th-grader home with him, introducing Guy to his parents, Mr and Mrs Une. Following Mrs Gabaldon's death, Guy becomes a foster child of the Une family and learns Japanese.

With the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor turning many Americans against Japanese-American citizens, the United States government orders the relocation of Japanese-Americans from their homes and businesses to internment camps. Mr and Mrs Une are sent to Camp Manzamar in California; Kaz and George (George Takei) enlist in the 442nd to fight in Italy. Guy questions why only Japanese-Americans have to be secluded from the general population while German-Americans and Italian-Americans are left alone though their countries of origin are enemies as well.

Following receipt of an induction notice, Guy gets rejected from military service because of a punctured eardrum. On a visit to his foster parents in the camp, Mama-san (Tsuru Aoki Hayakawa) allows Guy to understand that he has her permission to fight the Japanese enemy. Applying as an interpreter, the Marine Corps accepts Guy, and sends him to Camp Pendleton as a boot for training.

Nicknamed Gabby, the fresh recruit eventually earns the friendship of his drill sergeant, Bill Hazen (David Janssen), and another vet, Cpl Pete Lewis (Vic Damone). On leave in Hawaii, on their way to the Pacific Theater, con-artist Gabby and his buddies pull a fast one on a cabbie to get whiskey and then find two Japanese women, Sono and Famika (a stripteaser from San Francisco), along with Sheila Lincoln (Patricia Owens), a magazine writer known as the "Iron Petticoat." In an apartment with the women, Sgt Hazen says: "That's what we're fighting for, not Mom's apple pie." Looking over the prim-and-proper Sheila seated demurely on the couch, while Famika wildly dances, Gabby remarks to Sono that Sheila seems to have all the standard equipment plus some extras, but no motor; Sono replies that there's a motor, the girl just needs the right man with a key: "Show her someone she can't have."

Leading up to the landing on Saipan, we see actual footage of the naval bombardment; the invasion by actors in uniforms has a convincing realism. After being emotionally dazed on the beach, Gabby recovers and climbs the ridge to hurl a grenade into a pillbox. Sgt Hazen reminds the private: "Kill or be killed." The Japanese charge the Marines, who engage the enemy in hand-to-hand conflict; Pete is killed.

Having secured the island, the Americans begin search-and-destroy missions. After a grenade is lobbed into a cave, a little girl comes out crying; Gabby goes in alone, bringing out several prisoners, both soldiers and civilians. Using food to lure the starving Japanese out from hiding, Gabby, wearing a baseball cap in place of his helmet, talks them into surrendering.

But after Sgt Hazen dies in a firefight, Gabby becomes a maniac, going off on his own to kill rather than capture. Following receipt of a letter from his mama-san ("No more mess") and witnessing with Capt Schwabe (John Larch) Japanese women and children committing suicide by leaping off cliffs (convinced by propaganda that they would be tortured if captured), Gabby recovers his equanimity and regrets the waste of lives.

Out with Sgt Leonard (Bill Williams), Gabby overhears General Matsui (Sessue Hayakawa) giving orders for a desperate banzai attack on the Americans; after the sergeant leaves to warn the Marines, Gabby remains with the general, who invokes of the Japanese code of honor, while the young American tries to convince him of the hopelessness of an attack with the remnants of an army and civilians, mostly sick, wounded, and starving.

In actuality Guy Gabaldon was Mexican-American, which Jeffrey Hunter was not.

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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