Bataan

For a war movie, this was a bit unusual in that almost the whole film took part in one place. You could almost make a play out of this. A group of men stay in one area trying to sabotage a bridge so the Japanese can't use it to transport supplies. Meanwhile, they have to fend off attacks by the enemy. The closing scenes feature that attack and some are quite brutal.

At least half of the story is not action but melodramatic looks at the soldiers, particularly of the squad's sergeant leader Robert Taylor and one of his men who has an attitude problem: Lloyd Nolan. We also get some shorter profiles of combat men played by Robert Walker, Thomas Mitchell and Desi Arnez (yes, Lucy's husband).

The special effects are more than passable considering they weren't too advanced in the film industry compared to today's technology. However, credibility was a little thin as those Japanese soldiers died awfully fast in those combat scenes at the end. I swear I saw several of them drop over before anyone hit them!

Taylor was the best in this movie "army" and Walker was the annoying character, playing an extremely young and generally stupid Navy guy (don't ask) who never stopped talking in this irritating voice. Other than his character, this was a tough, no-nonsense war movie.