CRY HAVOC

US, 1943, 97 minutes, Black and white.
Margaret Sullavan, Joan Blondell, Ann Sothern, Fay Bainter, Marsha Hunt, Ella Raines, Frances Gifford, Diana Lewis, Heather Angel, Connie Gilchrist.
Directed by Richard Thorpe.

Cry Havoc is a quality piece of American film-making propaganda from the '40s. Based on a play, it focuses on a group of women who have to nurse in the besieged Philippines at Bataan. The film is similar to the Paramount venture with Claudette Colbert and a star cast, So Proudly We Hail.

The strength of the film is in the cast, their working together as an ensemble as well as the emotional response to the blockade of the Philippines. The film ends with a downbeat tone with the women being taken prisoners of war. Margaret Sullavan is very good as the central nurse. Ann Sothern and Joan Blondell have brassier roles. There are good supporting performances from such stars as Marsha Hunt, Fay Bainter and Ella Raines. It is particularly a woman's film - very few men are seen (although Robert Mitchum appears as a dying soldier). The film was directed by Richard Thorpe, a standard M.G.M. director of the '40s and '50s. The film stands up well as a human story despite the propaganda message of the time.

1. M.G.M. quality production? Propaganda? Word War Two effort? Seen in retrospect?

2. Black and white production values, the re-creation of the Philippines and the nurses? accommodation? The strength of the star cast?

3. Based on a play, the focus on words and interactions rather than war action? The war action sequences? Musical score and stirring?

4. The date of production, propaganda, the war in the Pacific, American intervention and participation? The urging the Americans to be involved? The tributes to those who served and died?

5. The war in the Pacific, Pearl Harbour, the Japanese and the attack on the Philippines, Bataan and the Americans being trapped, prisoners of war?

6. The focus on the attacks, men in war, the Japanese, the hospital, the hardworking nurses, women volunteering to nurse, the pressures, danger, heroism and coping?

7. Smithy and her toughness: her relationship with her superior, the urge to go to Australia? Her secret marriage and love, the telephone calls? Her hard work with the patients, her laying down the law with the girls? The bombings, the relief? The confrontation with Pat and the irony of the going as a prisoner of war? marriage? her collapse?

8. Pat, her waitress background, presence in the Philippines, tough, attracted towards Holt, affected by his death, the clash with Smithy, Flo telling her the truth, the reconciliation?

9. Grace and Joan Blondell's comic style, the stripper, the cheerfulness, her being wounded, her work?

10. Flo and her practical know-how, driving the truck, bringing, the women, the phones, giving the information to Pat?

11. The English sisters, the shock, working on the radio, the girl who was shell-shocked, the swimming, the girl who was killed swimming? The girl from Georgia and her twang, her not having worked for others before? Their all becoming part of the war effort?

12. The detail of the film: the hospital, the women's quarters, their meals, the bombings, the men dying, the jeeps, the swimming and the strafing?

13. The downbeat ending and its emotional impact? The women going as prisoners of war? The focus on World War Two? The values of the period?