PT 109

Despite the bland performance of CLIFF ROBERTSON as JFK, PT 109 manages to be a well-staged WWII adventure photographed in handsome Technicolor with some very fine special effects that make all the battle scenes look very realistic.

The best performance in the film is delivered by JAMES GREGORY as the hard-nosed commander of the PT squadron, with a cynical view of the young Kennedy who has had no wartime training until he arrives in the Pacific to put together a crew to work aboard a hastily repaired patrol boat.

It's a story of courage and heroism that could have been told in ninety minutes to make the drama more taut. Instead, the film is padded out to a two-hours and twenty-minutes length that makes it feel like another "Mr. Roberts," especially during the long first hour.

All of the squadron members are well played by a cast that includes TY HARDIN, GRANT WILLIAMS and ROBERT BLAKE as able seamen who form Kennedy's crew. Touches of wartime humor are present with amusing lines throughout. ("The skipper would mount a tank on a PT boat if he could find one," says a loyal crewman at one point). And when Kennedy is reminded of how idealistic he is when confronting the most unfavorable situations, he replies with a grin: "It must be a character flaw."

The only real flaw with the film is its length, which robs it of some much needed tension toward the middle. However, as a film examining the earlier life of JFK's participation as a lieutenant in WWII, it's satisfying enough as a realistic depiction of the events aboard PT 109.

Summing up: The basic story of Kennedy's efforts to bring his men back safely from a dangerous mission is effectively portrayed and manages to hold the interest despite being overlong. Worth seeing at least once.

Cliff Robertson was a good choice to play Lt. John F. Kennedy, new PT boat commander in 1944. He looked a bit like Kennedy and was able to recreate many of his mannerisms. This movie hit the theaters in the USA in June 1963, just after I graduated from high school, and only five months before President Kennedy died from a bullet in Dallas, Texas. I remember it well, it was perfect for the times, as it dramatized the events where the boat, PT 109, was rammed by a Japanese destroyer and sank, but Kennedy was able to lead the survivors to safety in the hostile South Pacific waters.

The movie opens in August 1942, the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific, the US Navy was using PT boats because they were fast, had a shallow draft, and carried a good complement of torpedoes. We first see Lt. Kennedy receiving his assignment aboard a destroyer, in 1943 or 1944, then landing on the island base. With no active boats available, he was offered the PT 109, which had been neglected and was not ship-shape. He was given a makeshift crew, and one week to get it seaworthy. Which he and his men do, and pass the inspection with flying colors. Kennedy is shown as a leader by example, working side by side with his men, and taking the time to thank them for a job well done.

The movie goes on to show the deployment of the 109 into regular service, and the incident which resulted in the sinking of the boat and subsequent fight for survival. Even though he was eligible for an assignment stateside, Kennedy took another boat and continued the battle. It is well made for a 1963 movie.

Kennedy was born in 1917 and was 26 when he enlisted in the Navy after Harvard. When he was 38 he completed his book, "Profiles In Courage" which won a Pulitzer Prize. When he was only 43, in 1960, he defeated Richard Nixon and became President of the USA. In November 1963, he was dead. In spite of his flaws as a man, as a leader and as a President he was remarkable, and this is a good movie to remind us of that.

I well remember PT 109 coming out in movie theaters during the summer of 1963. It was still playing in the hinterlands when the events of November 22, of that year occurred.

Probably Cliff Robertson wisely decided not to try for a Boston accent in his portrayal of the 35th president of the United States during his World War II years. If he had he might have come off as imitating Vaughn Meader imitating John F. Kennedy. As it is the only concession he made to the role was a bit of reddish tint in his hair to suggest the man he was playing. It worked rather well and still works today.

Ironically though had their been other U.S. Navy craft near the PT 109 when the Japanese battleship Amagiri sliced it like a loaf of bread in the middle of the night who could have picked up survivors, Lieutenant j.g. John F. Kennedy probably would have been facing a court martial for losing his boat that way. It was the only PT boat in World War II lost to the Japanese in that manner.

But the story is not about that as it was the survival of all, but two of his crew who were killed in the collision. It's about Lieutenant Kennedy towing an injured man while swimming for a deserted Pacific island and keeping his men alive until they could be rescued. The Navy was not about to court martial a hero.

Warner Brothers filled out the rest of the cast with some tried and true players, some like Ty Hardin and Grant Williams from their television series which was rapidly taking over the Warner Brothers lot. Particularly I liked James Gregory as the career naval officer in charge of the PT squadron and Michael Pate as Australian coast watcher Reg Evans. This is one of the few American made films where Michael Pate plays someone from his own country.

I remember on Jack Paar's Friday night variety show he devoted an entire hour to one long commercial for this film. He reunited all of the surviving PT 109 survivors with Australian coast watcher Reg Evans who had a big hand in rescuing them. Evans had met Kennedy of course, but had never met the rest of the crew. The whole living crew was there except the skipper who was in the White House and who could know he'd be the next one to die.

If JFK had lived and been running for re-election in 1964 what a great piece of election propaganda PT 109 would have been. The story also had a lot to do with his successful campaign in 1960. Kennedy was running under the cloud of his father Joseph P. Kennedy being a supporter of appeasement back in the day. This story and the death of his older brother Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. in combat in the European theater blunted a lot of the criticism of the actions of his father.

PT 109 is a nicely done war film and a great piece of nostalgia for the Kennedy years.

This movie has always been a great favorite of mine because I always regarded President John F. Kennedy to be one of the most influential politicians of the 20th century who championed the cause of Democracy throughout the world, particularly during the Cold War.

His service as a Naval Lieutenant in the Pacific during WW 11, in charge of a PT boat,(No. 109) which was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer during a night sortie in the Solomon Islands in August 1943 is one of heroic performance in which he paid vigilance to the safety of his disbanded crew, getting them to dry surroundings on a nearby island.

Their future looked bleak after being written off as dead by their own command,

But Australian Coast Watcher Lt. Reginald Evans (played by Michael Pate) and his loyal band of native Solomon Islanders refused to give up hope of their survival and after extensive searching discovered their whereabouts.

Kennedy sent a message to Evans carved on a coconut to confirm his presence and that of his men and they were subsequently rescued.

Kennedy's actions were very gallant on his part indeed, in order to keep his crew intact, and he did it with magnificent conduct in a role played superbly by Cliff Robertson.

Excellent supporting cast with James Gregory as local district Naval Commander Ritchie, and Ty Hardin, Robert Culp and Robert Blake making up as members of the crew.

A great well made movie of a true future leader - no wonder he became a U.S. President.

P.S. When President Kennedy paid a visit to Australia in 1962 he asked to meet once again with Lt. Evans and that was a bond of friendship renewed. I will never forget that terrible day one year later when he was assassinated in Dallas Texas on November 22nd 1963. I was 19 years old at the time.

I first saw this film during it's initial theatrical release and have seen it several times since. This a good movie but at 2 hours and 20 minutes it runs a little long. This could have been made more concise and more adventurous and should have come in at 90 minutes and it would have been a better movie. Director Leslie Martinson only made nine mostly forgettable films in his long directorial career that was mostly in television. This was his best film. He was a much sought after television director and directed some of the most popular television series from the early 50's through the mid 80's. This was the last film in the long career of producer Bryan Foy. Foy was a producer and director from the 1920's and began producing full-time in the 1930's specializing in mainly B-movies. A great cinematographer here in Robert Surtees who had photographed Ben Hur, Oklahoma, quo Vidas and would go on to photograph The Graduate, The Summer of 42, The Last Picture Show and The Sting among his many films. A good editor on this film too in Folmar Blangsted who edited Rio Bravo and The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell and would go on to edit The Summer of 42 and ironically Camelot among his many films. This is the story of the naval career of future US President John F. Kennedy as a lieutenant in WWII. This is adapted from the best selling book PT 109 John F. Kennedy in WWII which was inspired by a 1944 article in the New Yorker magazine called Survival by John Hersey. The PT 109 story of the patrol boat in the South Pacific captained by Lt. John F. Kennedy that was cut in half in a collision with a Japanese destroyer was a big part of the Kennedy story. During his 1961 Inagural parade a full size replica float of the boat was featured in the parade route with all of the original crew members on the float as a surprise to the new president. He kept the coconut shell that he had written a message on encased in class in his Oval Office along with a model replica of a PT boat. Warren Beatty apparently was Kennedy's first choice to portray him in this film which would have made sense as when this was filmed in the summer of 1962 in the Florida Keys, Beatty was 25 years old, exactly the same age as Kennedy was in 1943 when the film's setting takes place. Beatty reportedly turned down the role and Kennedy's second choice was Cliff Robertson who at 36 years old when production was done on this film was a full 10 years older and quite a few pounds heavier than Kennedy was in 1943. Also in the cast are Robert Culp, Norman Fell, James Gregory, Ty Hardin and Robert Blake. Look for future Star Trekker George Takei on the Japaneses destroyer. Character actor Andrew Duggan narrates. This film has more of a look and feel of a made-for television movie but it's definitely worth a watch. I would give it a 7.0 out of 10.