Robert J. Maxwell The story of Claudette Colbert, her husband Patrick Knowles, and their young child during the Japanese occupation of Borneo shortly after Pearl Harbor in 1941. In précis it looks pretty ominous. The brutal Japanese, the sobbing women, the starving children, the constant insults and beatings. And this is, after all, 1950, probably written and shot mostly in 1949, with the war a short four years behind. It was less than a decade earlier that the war-time movies had been calling the Japanese "bandy legged monkeys" (Robert Taylor in "Bataan") and calling for them to be "wiped off the face of the earth" (Henry Hull in "Objective Burma.").Well, the authoress of the book this is based on can be glad she wasn't a Chinese woman when the Japanese occupied Nanking in China, true enough, but this film is more nuanced than any other I can think of from the period. It's, well, it's credible. Japanese prison camps were much harder on prisoners than the German Stalags. The Japanese were equally hard on their own warriors. The aviation cadets at Etajima endured a long and strenuous training program and were beaten routinely with sticks for errors. Late in the war, officers on Chichi Jima ate the liver of decomposing American corpses. Not that they enjoyed it; they were half drunk before they could bring themselves to do it. It was a demonstration to the men that even the most disgusting acts could be overcome with courage.At any rate, the Japanese, let by Colonel Sesue Hayakawa, separated men and women into different camps but nobody ate any livers. The Japanese guards followed orders implicitly, and when Hayakawa was absent, one of them rapes Colbert and later twists her arm brutally to get her to sign a fake admission. But they're not the raving maniacs of "Purple Heart." And Hayakawa is a horse of a different color; a nice guy, literate, understanding, a graduate of the University of Washington, who enjoys children and grieves when three of his own are killed in Hiroshima.It's rather surprising to find the Japanese being treated so evenly in a film from the 1950s. They're not "good" but they're not "bandy legged monkeys" either. They're just believable.Hayakawa delivers a fine subdued performance and it's certainly Colbert's most notable dramatic role. It's worth catching -- an adult movie about the war, when most of Western cinema was just recovering from a long spell of enmity.

weezeralfalfa Based upon the book of the same title, written by WWII internee Agnes Newton Keith, who also wrote several other books about her experiences in British Borneo(present Sarawak and Sabah),and other countries she spent some time in. It's generally acknowledged that the film is a toned down version of the book, which is probably a toned down version of the horrible realities of life in a Japanese POW/civilian prison camp. As the heroine, Claudette Colbert wasn't expected to diet down to the 80 lbs. that the real Mrs. Keith suffered during the latter part of her internment.The screen play is pretty straight forward in telling how the few westerners residing in the capital city of British North Borneo(present Sabah) were initially interned on a nearby island by the invading Japanese, shortly after Pearl Harbor, and spent the rest of the war in this or other internment camps. After about 9 months, they were moved to the larger Batu Lintang camp, near Kuching, in present Sarawak. The sexes were separated, except that young boys(such as the Keith's George) were housed with their mothers. Not mentioned in the film, is the segregation of the men into several categories, according to their official status, country of origin, and whether they were civilians or military personnel. The women and children, the civilian men and the officers were provided with better conditions and less crowding than the non-officer military personnel. The latter group, the largest category, suffered the highest mortality rate, at 2/3 dying! In contrast, amazingly, none of the 42 children died. This can perhaps be attributed to the better sanitation conditions in the women's barracks and to the fact that the women often shared some of their meager rations with their children. Also, not mentioned is the fact that the quantity of food rations steadily declined as the war dragged on. Whether this was a deliberate attempt to starve them or promote their death from disease, or whether it reflected dwindling Japanese resources is unclear. At one point, a guard attempted to rape Mrs. Keith, outside in the dark. This is well dramatized, as well as the problems for her when she complained to the commanding officer, Colonel Suga. Not mentioned is the fact that most of the guards were Korean or Taiwanese, rather than Japanese.The relationship between Col. Suga and Mrs. Keith is pictured as mostly rosy, mostly because she had written a book about Borneo that he had read. The other Japanese could be nice, on occasion, but often were unconcerned or brutal in their punishment of transgressions of the many camp rules. Understandably not mentioned is the fact that Col. Suga committed suicide after he was arrested, but before his trial for war crimes.Found among the papers of Col. Suga was a directive to execute all the internees on Aug. 17, 1945. However, this wasn't carried out, possibly because the Japanese officially surrendered on the 15th. However, another directive was found ordering the execution of all on Sept. 15, 4 days past when an Australian unit liberated them! Whether Col. Suga initiated these directives or whether they came from outside seems unclear. Claudette did a wonderful job of acting in her role. Patric Knowles, as Mr. Keith, did an excellent job in his more limited role. Mark Keuning played George Keith, while Sessue Hayakawa played Col. Suga, and Howard Chuman played Lt. Nekawa, who was the camp commander when Col. Soga was elsewhere, which happened often.Of course, the title communicates the fact that all 3 of the Keiths survived this ordeal, and went on with their lives after a period of recovery from their extreme weight loss. Most of the shooting took place around Sandakan, in present Sabah. See it in B&W at YouTube.

mark.waltz Long before the first Holocause movie or the German prison camp classic "Stalag 13" (or TV's "Hogan's Heroes") came this film documenting the horrors of a Japanese detention camp, actually several, as European residents (and one American) of Borneo are forced out of their homes by the invading Japanese and separated into two camps-one for women and children, the other for husbands. This concentrates mainly on the women's camp, here a real-life survivor who told her own story in book form and soon after saw it adapted for the screen.Claudette Colbert plays Agnes Newton Keith, the courageous woman who stood up to Japanese brutality and almost paid for it with her life. She finds a kinsman of sorts with the camp's very human Japanese commander (Sessue Hayakawa) who admires her for an earlier book she wrote and makes her an occasional confidante. But other Japanese soldiers and guards are obviously envious of this friendship, and make her pay in quite inhuman and degrading ways. The film hits its emotional high when Hayakawa reveals to her the fate of his family who moved from Tokyo to Hiroshima to disastrous results.As great as Colbert is, she never looses her movie star good looks while the other women around her look as if they've been beaten by the life they've been forced into. Colbert's hair style remains impeccable, false eye lashes never slip, and she barely has any dirt on her face even in the most brutal of torture scenes and one where she scoots underneath a fence to meet her husband (Patric Knowles) for just one minute. It is Hayakawa who garners the highest praise, especially in climactic scene where he grieves for his family while giving several American children (including Colbert's son) an impromptu party just before the end of the war. No matter what your feeling towards the Japanese as far as World War II is concerned, you can't help but be touched by his breakdown, especially in light of his kindness to Colbert.The gripping scene between Colbert and Knowles where she risks everything to see him for one minute is another touching scene, as prison guards arrive at the women's bunk house to check on Colbert's son, desperately in need of Quinine. That and other tense scenes will have you on the edge of your seat.

vincentlynch-moonoi This is a rather remarkable film because it is a basically true story, and much of it was filmed in locales where it actually took place.Made in 1950, it is rather faithfully based on the memoirs of Agnes Newton Keith. It tells the story of her family's ordeal of being civilian POWs of the Japanese after the Japanese invasion of what is today Indonesia. Keith and her young son were interned at a camp in Sarawak, which was not liberated until September, 1945. Her husband had been a British official in the region and was interned at a different camp for men.None of us can imagine what it must have been like for the Brits taken prisoner, but this film gives one a pretty good idea. As I watched the film several things occurred to me. First that these women and children -- at least according to this film -- had to live much as many "locals" live in southeast Asia today "upcountry". I lived in Thailand for a while, and when I visited my partner's village in 2010, I saw conditions much like some depicted in this film. Of course, it is different when you are prisoner. I also detected racial tension, though subtle, in this film.Surprisingly, the most touching scenes of the film were when the Japanese camp commandant learns this his entire family was killed in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and he takes 3 of the British children to his temporary home near the camp for a sort of picnic.As always, Claudette Colbert was excellent here, as was Sessue Hayakawa, who plays a very different role than his character in "The Bridge On The River Kwai".This is not a film I want on my DVD shelf, but it is very good.