Three Came Home

This movie probably could not have been made during the war or immediately afterwards because although the Japanese are definitely bad in the film, they are not one-dimensional and Sessue Hayakawa plays a Japanese Commandant that is believable and not 100% wicked or sex-crazed. Instead, this is a compelling true story of a woman who is interred in a camp for the duration of the war and her relationship with the commandant. The commandant is NOT typical of many ultra-brutal and inhumane camp leaders and tries to treat the detainees firmly but reasonably. While they never become best friends (that would be creepy and ridiculous), over time, she was able to see and appreciate his humanity. In fact, over time, both began to find things to respect about the other. A fascinating look at history and the people who lived through it.

First-rate production from TCF. The studio's craftsmanship is really in evidence in this atmospheric and moving account of one woman's heroic effort at surviving Japanese internment during WWII. A highly de-glamorized Colbert is simply superb as real-life Britisher Agnes Keith imprisoned on Borneo with her small boy in the early days of the war. Those nightmarish jungle scenes with the wind and the foliage have stayed with me over the years and cast an appropriately unstable mood over the movie as a whole. Credit ace director Jean Negulesco for bringing out the film's strong emotional values without sentimentalizing them. He continues to be an underrated movie-maker from the dynamic studio period.

We know from Sessue Hayakawa's cultivated Japanese colonel that Hollywood is changing its perceptions of our former enemy. Cruel stereotypes do continue (presumably based on fact), but the colonel's character is humanized to an unusually sympathetic degree-- even his loss in the recent atomic bombing of Hiroshima is mentioned. Then too, it's well to remember that during the war our government interned US citizens of Japanese extraction in pretty inhospitable camps along the eastern Sierras, and probably illegally so.

Anyway, the movie has the look and feel of the real thing, while the producers should be saluted for using as many actual locations as possible. The fidelity shows. Since the story is the thing, the cast appropriately has no stars except for Colbert, which helps produce the realistic effect. There are a number of riveting and well-staged scenes. But the staging of the final crowd re-union scene strikes me as particularly well done. And, of course, there's that final heart-breaking view of the hilltop that still moves me, even 60 years later. All in all, this is the old Hollywood system at its sincere and de-glamorized best.

Claudette Colbert plays Agnes Keith, prisoner. The time period is WWII. Agnes is a married woman with a child that has no idea of what is about to happen to her. She will be taken to a woman's prisoner of war camp. Her boy stays with her but her husband is taken away. There is no hope for any of the women. Life is hard. Forced physical labor is the rule of the day. Soldiers show no feelings for their captives. Sessue Hayakawa plays Colonel Suga, in charge of the camp. A man that follows orders and yet does seem to try to treat the women with some respect. As the months carry on. Will help ever arrive at the camp? Will this war ever end the punishment of being a prisoner? Will the women ever see their husbands again? A fine performance by Claudette. The ending ends with both human sadness and victory.

Good performances and scripting enhance this tale of hardship and endurance set in a Japanese internment camp in Borneo during World War II. Miss Colbert's performance in particular is always convincing and often riveting. Also noteworthy is Sessue Hayakawa's sensitive portrayal of the outwardly stern but inwardly humane Col. Suga.

Considering that this film was released only five years after the end of World War II, when anti-Japanese feeling was still very much present in the U.S., it's surprising that the horrors of life in Japanese captivity aren't played up more. Several instances of casual and calculated brutality are shown, but there is little here to compare with the shocking (and realistic) scenes in the much more recent film "Paradise Road." And the range of characterizations among the Japanese should be a welcome surprise to those who dismiss wartime and postwar American attitudes as uniformly jingoistic and racist. Yes, some of the Japanese are wantonly cruel, but others are obviously sympathetic to the prisoners, and as noted above, Col. Suga emerges not only as a reasonable commander but also as a noble man who can resist the temptation to take out his own grief and anger on the prisoners. Sadly, there were few men like Col. Suga in the real Borneo camps.

One unfortunate oversight: the action of the film covers almost four years of imprisonment and deprivation, but the prisoners appear just about as well-fed and energetic at the end as when they arrived.

Claudette Colbert is remembered for her performances in comedy roles, but she was a fine dramatic actress as well. This is by far her best dramatic performance. My only problem with the film is the fact that Claudette is confined to a Japanese prison camp for several years, but maintains her hairdo throughout!