Solidrariol Am I Missing Something?

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Orla Zuniga It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

ma-cortes Moving warlike production set on the Philippines plenty of Japanese and a crew of Marines battling an important base on the Pacific . The picture is divided in 4 chapters : first , second , third and fourth day . During WWII , October 1944 , a commando is assigned a dangerous mission on the Philippines Islands already inhabited by stranded Japanese forces , they have 38 hours to get their objectives . The Americans are commanded by a captain but he early dies and a sergeant (Hugh O'Brian) rules over soldiers . The group is formed by First Sergeant Steve (Hugh O'Brian) , 2ª Sergent (Mickey Rooney) , Sgt. William (Pete Masterson) , Corporal Alvin Ross (Henry Lauter) , Cpl. Parrish (Amsterdam) , Pvt George (Tony Smith) , Capt. Alonzo (Clam Stadler) and the starring James Grenier , a soldier without experience(James Mitchum , the tale is narrated under his point of view by voice in off) . At the beginning the Marines are successfully in wiping out Japanese . But they are spotted and descended upon by enemies forces ; meanwhile suffering casualties , exhaustion, encounters until execute their mission and to be rescued by a ship . They must go to the other side of the island until Panpassan at a Japanese resort , a 'House of tea' where contact a spy called Miyazaki who has top information and transmit it by radio . Then , the daredevil sergeant and the rockie radio-man soldier (James Mitchum) find themselves vying during the escape . The group must try to survive enemy that undergo a chase and a mini-war , as they fight all by themselves and finally find how wrong his misconceptions are . At the end the survivors endeavor to blow up a pivotal Japanese installation .This is a Schenck-Zabel-Hal Klein Production realised thru United Artists and written by Ib Melchor , a Sci-Fi expert ; being well photographed by Emmanuel Rojas . Flag-waver wartime movie with a typical crew of Marines battling the 'yellow menace' and retrieve a messenger . The film packs warlike action, thrills, drama and is quite entertaining . The story contains a brief studio character seeking human frailty beneath surface heroism . Splendid Hugh O'Brian as tough sergeant , in one of the best roles and James Mitchum -who bears remarkable resemblance his father Robert- is fine , no thanks to mediocre script . Director Ron Winston's skill with the thrills overcomes the artificiality of the story . A cool cast, nice direction from Winston with riveting climax and enhanced by energetic score by Richard La Salle make this a must for wartime fans . The picture was filmed entirely on actual locations in the Republic of the Philippines . The producers gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of the Philippine government and its armed Force . Thanks to the U.S. Department of Defense , U.S. Navy , Marine Corps and Coast Guard , for their invaluable assistance , the producers extended thru United Artists .Others movies concerning the wartime sub-genre about American soldiers battling Japanese on the Pacific islands and Philippines during the WWII are the following : Guadalcanal diary(43)by Lewis Seiler with Anthony Quinn and Lloyd Nolan ; the classic Sands of Iwo Jima(1949) by Allan Dawn with John Wayne ; Beachhead (1956)by Stuart Heisler with Tony Curtis and Frank Lovejoy ; None but the brave, directed and starred by Frank Sinatra; and Between heaven and hell(1956) with Robert Wagner, among them.

zardoz-13 U.S. Army General Douglas MacArthur is about to return to the Philippines as he promised before the Japanese ran him off. In 1944, an amphibious Navy aircraft lands a Marine commando force near the island of Luzon, and they paddle ashore to obtain valuable information from a source deep within enemy territory. As First Sgt. Steve Corey, Hugh O'Brien of "The Brass Legend" is tough-as-nails, and Mickey Rooney is no slouch as career Gunnery Sgt. Ernest Wartell who totes around a .45 caliber Thompson submachine gun almost as big as he is. The youngest member of the unit is Private First Class James Grenier (Jim Mitchum of "Moonrunners") who has never seen combat. It doesn't take long for Sgt. Corey and Pfc. Grenier to get to dislike each other. Corey makes it clean in no uncertain terms that Grenier is supposed to cradle the radio set that is their life-line to Allied command. Indeed, Grenier is the member of the team is chosen at the last minute to fill in the regular guy. He provides the voice-over narration that introduces us to the commando team at the beginning of the film and concludes it at the end of the movie.Our grim-faced gyrene heroes in camouflage fatigues learn from their contact, Miyazaki (Tisa Chang of "Year of the Dragon") that the Japanese have prepared an unusual minefield for the U.S. Navy. These mines are radio controlled and are anchored to the bottom of the bay. They are released and rise to the surface to blow up whatever they come into contact with. Grenier loses his radio with which he was entrusted. They have no way of contacting the Admiral Halsey's task force and MacArthur plans to land in 48 hours! Consequently, "Ambush Bay" is a thriller with a deadline. Instead, Corey and Grenier have to slip into the Japanese base, shoot their way into the radio control room and detonate the mines. Naturally, tough guy Corey keeps the enemy at bay with a 50. caliber, tripod-mounted machine gun from the roof of the installation.Altogether, everybody dies except Grenier. Rooney has an amusing death scene. The Japanese find him sitting by a tree and threaten to kill him if he doesn't ante up information about himself and his cronies. He produces two hand grenades and invites them to dinner. He tells them that he will share his "potatoes" with them and they can have them with "the jackets on" and then hurls them at the Japanese as they beat a quick retreat. "Ambush Bay" is nothing special as far as behind-enemy-lines combat movies go. Essentially, this is a traditional war movie. The Americans are good guys, and the Japanese--who shoot women in cold blood--are the bad guys. Good performances, standard-issue heroics and lots of green scenery keep "Ambush Bay" from being too dreary. Incidentally, no sooner do our heroes immerse themselves in combat than their officer is attacked by a Japanese soldier and stabbed to death. This is a traditional World War II movie because the Americans aren't trying to kill their leaders like they did in "Tawara Beachhead" or "Attack." Composer Richard LaSalle's orchestral soundtrack sounds as if he listened to Malcolm Arnold's music "The Bridge on the River Kwai" because LaSalle incorporate a similar melody. No, I'm not talking about Colonel Bogey's march. Scenarists Marve Feinberg and Ib Melchior have penned a screenplay that amounts to an anthology of clichés. "Ambush Bay" represents Feinberg's only screenplay, while Melchior earned a reputation writing sci-fi films such as "Robin Crusoe on Mars," "Angry Red Planet," and "Journey to the Seventh Planet."

ddc300 Just picked up this DVD for a song. Yes, the acting is wooden, the characters are archetypes of classic WWII yarns, and the blood was obviously red paint. But this film does include two nice touches: the cinematography, and the music score. I thought I recognized the music: Richard LaSalle was the composer for "Ambush Bay" and many of his music cues from this film turned up as incidental music on most of producer Irwin Allen's TV projects throughout the 1970's. The "Land of the Giants" series used a lot of his music in the later episodes.Oddly, in a peculiar coincidence, "Ambush Bay" co-script writer Ib Melchoir was a noted sci-fi film scribe, having penned "The Time Travelers" (1966), and is credited with creating the idea for producer Irwin Allen's "Lost In Space" (for which he was not given credit). And the tie-in is that composer LaSalle contributed scores to both "Time Travelers" and "Lost in Space" (sometimes fact IS stranger than fiction).

SgtSlaughter *Spoilers below*"Ambush Bay" is the poster-child of how to make a war film based solely on clichés. Regardless, the result is a very entertaining look at espionage in the Pacific Theater.Days before MacArthur's fleet is to return to the Philippines, a squad of Marines is dropped on Mindanao with a risky assignment: penetrate enemy territory and contact a spy named Miyazaki who operates out of a Japanese rest camp. They spy has information vital to MacArthur's intelligence department. They are experts in the field of killing, except for Grenier (Jim Mitchum), a PBY radio man who was assigned to the team at the last minute when the original radio operator got sick. Grenier doesn't fit in with the veterans, especially the macho Sgt. Corey (Hugh O'Brian).The piece is clichéd from start to finish – in what movie have we not seen the characters, setting or mission before? Director Winston handles this nonsense seriously – so seriously, that despite the flaws, it's very easy to enjoy this movie, even in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way. O'Brian gives a passionate performance, even if his character is anything but original and personal. His Sergeant is virtually a superhero, as Sgt. Wartell (Mickey Rooney!) reveals to Grenier by describing a series of Corey's early exploits on Guadalcanal and Tarawa. Rooney looks to be thoroughly enjoying himself as he scales cliffs and mows down Japanese infantry by the dozen, although he looks way too old and simultaneously boyish to be a believable career marine. Although he gets third billing, Mitchum's is the most developed and believable character. He's a person any viewer can relate to: thrown into a situation beyond his control, Grenier is forced to adapt to ever-changing conditions – and fast – because his life may depend on it. He wants to do his job well, but doesn't have any natural talent, and therefore his peers look down on him with contempt. His performance never strikes a false note, and he even gets to lapse into some voice-overs to keep things fresh.The on-location photography is stunning from beginning to end. Had this film not been shot in the Philippines, any credibility would have been totally lost. The exteriors are appropriately lush and beautiful. Winston and cinematographer Emmanuel L. Rojas don't just take us into the steamy jungles; we get to venture into rice patties, across streams and down rushing, crystal clear blue rivers. I absolutely hate it when producers try to make ridiculous locations like North American forests ("The Green Berets") or rocky plains of Spain (1964's "The Thin Red Line") pass for Asian or South Pacific jungles. The technique just doesn't work. Kudos to Winston for choosing to shoot this film in the actual locations it is said to have occurred at.Although the movie runs nearly 2 hours, the time flies by. The pace is kept fluid in two ways. The characters are constantly on the go. The only reason they stop is rest, and we're treated to discussion revealing something of their character. For example, we don't get to know Corey as a person until late in the film when he develops a relationship with Tisa Chang's character. When the men aren't hiking or resting, they're engaged in some sort of combat with the enemy – patrols, tanks and indigenous cannibals constantly hamper their progress. Winston doesn't dwell on the supporting cast at all: most of them are non-essential characters that he kills off in a few early encounters with the enemy. We constantly ask ourselves "Who is going to get killed next?" This curiosity keeps us engaged right up until the climactic battle inside a fortified Japanese radio installation.All of that said, it's necessary to point out several technical flaws which make the proceedings difficult to take seriously. The members of the squad are introduced quite extensively as masters in the art of warfare, but by the half-way point, almost all of them have been killed by Japanese draftees. Their detailed introductions are a waste of viewer time and engagement, since Winston seems to want to kill all of them off as quickly as possible. The death of one key character, involving "baked potatoes", has got to be an example of some of the worst screen-writing I've witnessed. Some of the special effects (namely the destruction of a tank) are very below par, even for a low-budget film from 1966. Outdoor sets are used multiple times, to represent very different locations. The film's climax is packed with unlikely heroics, but by the time it arrives, viewers have dispensed with realistic expectations. The ridiculous baseball-style caps look like something a Green Beret or Navy SEAL might have worn in the 1960s, but are totally out of place in a World War II movie. I took flak for this comment elsewhere. I don't care if Baseball caps are the "headgear of choice" for Marine air crewmen - these are Marines on an important mission and the last thing they'll be wearing in a green jungle is a bright red cap which yells "HERE I AM! SHOOT ME!" Perhaps the unbelievable, overstated corny parts of "Ambush Bay" make it such an entertaining film; maybe it's more sincere performances of Mitchum and O'Brian that make it stand out from the deluge of "jungle patrol" stories out there. Whatever the reason, it's thoroughly enjoyable has been a favorite of mine since I caught it on cable as a kid. Now that it's available on DVD, a whole new audience may have opened up.