[PW] WWII movie set on South Pacific Island

[Nancy Jo Leachman]

Turner Classic Movies showed CHINA DOLL tonight. I was channel flipping and saw the last few minutes, where Victor Mature rescues a baby and dies firing a machine gun at enemy planes. We then see a scene 12 or 13 years later which lets us know that the baby survived. I didn't see the rest of the movie, so I don't know if it fits.


Nancy Jo Leachman
Salina Public Library
301 W. Elm
Salina, KS 67401

785 825-4624



-----Original Message-----
From: project-wombat-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org on behalf of Bill Davis
Sent: Wed 6/18/2008 4:15 AM
To: Ellen Cousins
Cc: list at project-wombat.org
Subject: Re: [PW] WWII movie set on South Pacific Island
 

I doubt that this is it.   I think the movie I'm thinking of would've 
been made in the late 50's or early 60's  (I should have put that in 
my query).  Probably in color.  And I feel pretty strong about the 
South Pacific locale.

Thanks,

Bill


At 03:13 AM 6/18/2008, you wrote:
>This may be it, Bill:
>
>China  (1943)
>
>Starring Alan Ladd and William Bendix
>
>...Alan Ladd and William Bendix are at the top of their form in this 
>film, with Bendix emoting like a freight train during some emotional 
>moments with a small Chinese baby. Ladd dominates the film 
>throughout and defines the entire tone of the picture in two 
>heart-stopping sequences that will burn themselves into any viewer's memory...
>
>...The opening shots of Sparrow trying to get through the bombed out 
>Chinese village are incredible feats of filmmaking and parallel the 
>kind of detail that Spielberg injected into sequences like the Tanis 
>dig site and the Ravenwood bar...
>
>...Another strikingly similar visual from the film is a shot in 
>which Ladd grabs a Japanese submachine gun and starts blasting away with it...
>
>http://www.theraider.net/information/influences/china.php
>
>http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035735
>
>Ellen C.
>
>
>
>
>
>Bill Davis wrote:
>>I'd like to identify a movie I saw as a child.   My impression was 
>>that it was about an American on a South Pacific Island during 
>>World War II, perhaps spying on Japanese ship movements.   At the 
>>end of the movie, the American returns to a small village and finds 
>>it has been strafed and everyone apparently killed.  He finds the 
>>body of a little native boy he had befriended, next to a baby that 
>>had survived.  He buries or moves the dead, and sets himself up in 
>>an machine gun dugout with the baby, and is killed while firing 
>>back at another Japanese strafing run, left lying dead in the 
>>dugout, with the baby crying.  I believe the last scene indicated 
>>other survivors had returned, recovered the baby, and were being 
>>taken off the island.
>>It's similar in theme to NO MAN IS AN ISLAND, with Jeffrey 
>>Hunter.  I don't think I've ever seen that movie but I understand 
>>it was about George Tweed, who survived the war, so I don't think 
>>that would be it.
>>Bill Davis


_______________________________________________
Project Wombat
list at project-wombat.org
http://www.project-wombat.org/