NO MAN IS AN ISLAND

US, 1962, 95 minutes, Colour.
Jeffrey Hunter, Marshall Thompson, Barbara Perez.
Directed by James Stone and Richard Goldstone.

No Man is an Island is by no means outstanding as a film. It is rather just another quite well done war story, this time using Philippine locales and actors and raising the usual war issues of this kind of movie.

1. Was this any more than a routine war film? Why?

2. Even if you thought it a routine film, did you like it? Why?

3. What conventional techniques of war films did the film use? Did it use them well?

4. How important a war hero was George Tweed? Did Jeffrey Hunter play him sympathetically? was he likeable?

5. How was the war situation and audience feeling quickly built up in the early conversations, the Pearl Harbour events and the decisions that had to be made on Guam?

6. Was the film exciting? Why?

7. What was the point of the cowardly soldier's surrender and his being shot?

8. Was the picture of the Guam resistance sympathetic - especially Mrs. Nakamura, the copra carrier, the priest and people at the leprosarium, Antonio and his family?

9. How was Tweed's heroism shown? Should he have surrendered to the Japanese? Why didn't he?

10. Were his heroics credible and presented as heroism but not as superhuman feats? How?

11. Were you glad the film had a happy ending? Why?

12. Was the film for or against war, or merely presenting it as a fact of life?

13. Was the film sentimental at all? Did it use any cliches?