The Real Glory is a 1939 Samuel Goldwyn Productions action film starring Gary Cooper, David Niven, Andrea Leeds and Broderick Crawford released by United Artists in the weeks immediately following Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland. Based on a 1937 novel of the same name by Charles L. Clifford and directed by Henry Hathaway, the film is set against the backdrop of the Moro Rebellion during the American occupation of the Philippines at the beginning of the 20th century. According to "The World" news broadcast on Aug 18, 2017, the War Department withdrew the film in 1942. The Moros were US allies in World War II, and the film had inflammatory scenes including threatening a Muslim prisoner with burial wrapped in a pig skin.
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Plot
In 1906, Alipang (Tetsu Komai) and his Muslim Moro guerrillas are terrorizing the people of the Philippine island of Mindanao, raiding villages, killing the men, and carrying off the women and children for slaves. Instead of maintaining garrisons indefinitely to protect the Filipinos, the U.S. army tests out a new tactic at Fort Mysang. The army detachment is replaced by a handful of officers - Colonel Hatch (Roy Gordon), Captains Manning (Russell Hicks) and Hartley (Reginald Owen), and Lieutenants McCool (David Niven) and Larsen (Broderick Crawford) - who are to train the native Philippine Constabulary to take over the burden. Army doctor Lieutenant Canavan (Gary Cooper) is sent along to keep them healthy. They are welcomed by a skeptical Padre Rafael (Charles Waldron).
Alipang starts sending fanatical juramentados to assassinate the officers and goad them into attacking before the natives are fully trained. Hatch is the first victim, leaving Manning to take command. Manning's wife (Kay Johnson) and Hartley's daughter Linda (Andrea Leeds) arrive for a visit at the worst possible time; a horrified Mrs. Manning witnesses her husband's murder. Hartley takes charge, but Canavan disagrees with his by-the-book, overcautious approach. Disobeying orders, Canavan sets out for Alipang's camp guided by Miguel (Benny Inocencio), a young Moro boy he has befriended. "Mike" (as Canavan calls him) infiltrates the camp and learns that Alipang has sent another assassin, this time for Hartley. Canavan and Mike intercept the man and take him back a prisoner.
Linda and Canavan fall in love, much to the disappointment of McCool and Larsen. When Hartley insists she leave Mysang with Mrs. Manning, she refuses and helps out at the hospital.
Alipang then dams the river on which the villagers depend. Hartley refuses to send a detachment into the jungle to blow it up (he is concealing the fact that he is slowly going blind from an old head wound). The people have to rely on an old well, but the contaminated water causes a cholera epidemic. Finally, Hartley has no choice but to send Larsen and some men to destroy the dam. They do not return.
The Datu (Vladimir Sokoloff), a supposedly friendly Moro leader, offers to guide Hartley and his men to the dam, but he is actually leading them into an ambush. Canavan learns of the Datu's treachery from Mike, the sole survivor of Larsen's detachment, and races to warn Hartley. Canavan forces the Datu to take him to the dam. The Datu is killed in a booby trap, but Canavan manages to dynamite the dam anyway. Then, he and the men raft back to the village, which is under attack by Alipang's men.
McCool is killed leading the defense, but Canavan and the rest return in time to turn the tide. Alipang is killed by Filipino Lieutenant Yabo (Rudy Robles). Their mission accomplished, the Hartleys and Canavan depart, leaving the village in Yabo's care.
Maps The Real Glory
Burial in a pig skin
In one scene Padre Rafael tells Dr. Canavan that the Moros are afraid of burial in a pig skin. In a later scene Dr. Canavan threatens Moro prisoner with this, and a pig skin is laid on the ground in front of the prisoner. This episode echoes a report in General Pershing's memoir My Life Before the World War that a Muslim fighter had been "publicly buried in the same grave with a dead pig". There is a related, but widely discredited, claim that Pershing had threatened to execute Muslim Moro prisoners with bullets dipped in pigs' blood. The historian Brian M. Linn wrote that it was unlikely that Pershing was involved in or had ordered others to commit religiously insulting acts, and that the episode in The Real Glory had probably fuelled the myth. This claim concerning bullets dipped in pigs' blood was referred to by Donald Trump in a presidential campaign speech in February 2016 and in a tweet following the terrorist attacks in Barcelona on August 17, 2017.
Cast
- Gary Cooper as Dr. Bill Canavan
- David Niven as Lieutenant Terence McCool
- Andrea Leeds as Linda Hartley
- Reginald Owen as Captain Steve Hartley
- Broderick Crawford as Lieutenant Larsen. Crawford was cast against type as a good-natured orchid fancier.
- Kay Johnson as Mrs. Mabel Manning
- Russell Hicks as Captain George Manning
- Vladimir Sokoloff as the Datu
- Benny Inocencio as Miguel (Mike)
- Charles Waldron as Padre Rafael
- Rudy Robles as Lieutenant Yabo
- Tetsu Komai as Alipang
- Roy Gordon as Colonel Hatch
- Henry Kolker as the General
- Elvira Ríos as Mrs. Yabo (uncredited)
Notes and references
Notes
References
- Isaac, Allan Punzalan (2006). American Tropics: Articulating Filipino America. Critical American Studies. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. p. 205. ISBN 0-8166-4274-5. Retrieved July 19, 2009.
- Hathaway, Henry; Rudy Behlmer; Polly Platt (2001). Henry Hathaway. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 281. ISBN 978-0-8108-3972-4. Retrieved July 19, 2009.
- Holsinger, M. Paul (1999). War and American Popular Culture. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 479. ISBN 978-0-313-29908-7. Retrieved July 19, 2009.
- Rosenberg, Ralph; Robert Karen (1986). When the Shooting Stops, the Cutting Begins. De Capo. p. 310. ISBN 978-0-306-80272-0. Retrieved July 19, 2009.
- Variety Film Review (January 1, 1939). "The Real Glory". Variety. Retrieved July 19, 2009.
- Nugent, Frank S. (September 15, 1939). "A Whopping Picture Is 'The Real Glory' With Gary Cooper, at the Rivoli". New York Times. New York Times. Retrieved July 19, 2009.
- Feaster, Felicia. "The Real Glory". Spotlight. Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved July 19, 2009.
- United States Copyright Office Staff (2007) [1964]. "Clifford, Charles L.". United States Copyright Office, The Catalog of Copyright Renewal Records. Washington, D.C.: Kessinger Publishing. p. 204. ISBN 978-1-4325-1237-8. Retrieved July 19, 2009.
- Woolf, Christopher (August 18, 2017). "Trump cites an urban legend about Gen. Pershing's fight with primarily Muslim insurgents". pri.org. "The World". Retrieved August 19, 2017.
External links
- The Real Glory on IMDb
- The Real Glory at the TCM Movie Database
- The Real Glory at AllMovie
Source of article : Wikipedia
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