THREE CAME HOME

US, 1950, 106 minutes, Black and white.
Claudette Colbert, Patric Knowles, Florence Desmond, Sessue Hayakawa.
Directed by Jean Negulesco.

Three Came Home is based on the book of her experiences in a prisoner-of-war camp by Agnes Keith. She is portrayed in the film by Claudette Colbert, veteran actress who made such an impact in the 1930s and 1940s and won an Oscar for It Happened One Night. Patric Knowles portrays her husband. They were captured along with their son by the Japanese in Borneo at the beginning of World War Two. Agnes Keith was in prison with her son and had to care for him for several years. She is admired by the colonel of the camp who appreciates her books. However, on his departure, the camp turns into a true concentration camp.

This kind of story was portrayed some years later in the film version of Neville Shute’s A Town Like Alice. It was also the subject of a memoir in Bruce Beresford’s Paradise Road.

Sessue Hayakawa portrayed the commandant of the camp in The Bridge Over the River Kwai. The film is directed by Romanian-born Jean Negulesco. He had a strong career in Hollywood during the 1940s with thrillers at Warner Brothers including The Mask of Dimitrios, The Conspirators, Three Strangers. He directed Jane Wyman in her Oscar-winning role in Johnny Belinda. However, with the coming of Cinemascope he joined many directors in making big-budget, rather colourful entertainments including the first Cinemascope comedy, How To Marry A Millionaire, Three Coins in the Fountain, Woman’s World, Daddy Longlegs and many others.

1. The tone of the title, the answer implied in the title? The optimistic aspect for the ending? The title and it's suspense, sadness?

2. How did the film reflect the styles of film making in the forties and fifties? Black and white photography, music? The fact that the film was made five years after the wars ending?

3. What would have been the impact of the film in its time? Why? Its impact on women audiences? What were the major qualities of the film, as a war story, as a human document?

4. What did the film show about war and evil, suffering and cruelty, survival and pride? The disruption of ordinary life? Families and work? The sadness but yet the courage and resourcefulness to go on? What goodness and resources does war elicit from people?

5. The impact in the film of the Japanese war: in Borneo, the unexpected invasion, the invasion itself, relationships between white people and Japanese? Japanese pride versus English pride? The clash of attitudes? The implications of cruelty in prison life? (Did the film imply that it would be vice versa for Japanese prisoners?) Did the film give a fair cinematic treatment of the Japanese as people? In war?

6. How important for the impact of the film was its being based on fact? The type of woman that Mrs Keith was? Her book, background, experience in Borneo, her commentary during the film? Sympathies with facts of the war? The possibility of audiences identifying with the characters?

7. How important were the initial pictures of family life, pregnancy? The preparations for the invasion and the lack of preparation? How real did this seem? The impact of war in these circumstances?

8. How interesting a character was the Japanese captain? How much admiration could audiences have for him? Were audiences suspicious of him as being cruel? How well founded were these? The importance in his American backgrounded? His getting Mrs Keith to sign the book?

9. How did the film show the impact of family separations in war? The separate camps, yet so close? The chances to see relatives? Notes dropped by husbands? The need to survive for family's sake? The exchanges of notes, Agnes's going out to see her husband? The note exchange when they went to different camps? The impact of the uniting at the end?

10. What visual impact did life in the prison camps make? continually on the move, the tropical rains, the accommodation, the continual work, the washing etc? The inter-relation of the people: the women amongst themselves, friendships growing, hard characters clashing? The nature of the clashes? The taunting of the Japanese guards? The women being victimised? Suffering?

11. In this context, how important was Mrs Keith's trial sequence? Her standing by her word? The forcing of the confession? The torture and the silence?

13. How important were such sequences as Mrs Keith's rondavel with her husband, the torture sequences, the doctor coming for the baby and Mrs Keith's getting into bed wet? The importance of the sequence with the Australian soldiers, the joviality as at the deaths?

14. The dramatic importance of the Colonel and his seeking the autograph, his role in the camp, his explanation of his family, their deaths because of the Atomic bomb, his sadness, Mrs Keith's support of him, the party for the children? What was audience response to this? The underlying humanity of all peoples despite war?

15. What do films like this show of human achievement in suffering?