Manila Calling

Lloyd Bridges and a handful of American and Filipino guerillas hold out in the jungle hills of the Philippines. Some Americans who didn't make it out with MacArthur show up, including Carole Landis.

It's a handsomely cast 20th Century-Fox B movie, with James Gleason, Cornell Wilde, Ralph Bird, Elisha Cook Jr., and Harold Huber filling out the cast, but when I wasn't lusting for Miss Landis, I was riveted by Nolan, who's always believable in this sort of movie, as an ordinary Joe caught up in a situation and doing a job against impossible odds. That's just the way Americans like to think of themselves, like Bogart but without the world-weary despair that paralyzes him at the start of the movie.

It should be noted that the movie doesn't pull any punches. Bridges' position and those who stick with him are hopeless. The best he or anyone can do is go out fighting, and shouting defiance against the Japanese. Would that we could all do as much in those situations which overwhelm us!