Perry Kate Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Brennan Camacho Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

bkoganbing Cry Havoc was based on a play by Allan Kenward which the Shuberts produced on Broadway and ran for a grand total of 11 performances over the Christmas/New Year's days of 1942-43. But what flops on Broadway can sometimes be a great success on screen and vice versa. In this case the subject matter had already been thoroughly covered in the Paramount film So Proudly We Hail and Cry Havoc runs a distinct second to that film. Like the Paramount film, Cry Havoc deals with nurses in the Phillipines after Pearl Harbor and their experiences during the Japanese attack.Margaret Sullavan was fulfilling the terms of an MGM contract with this movie. Afterwards she would concentrate on the stage and would only do one more film years later, No Sad Songs For Me. She plays the no nonsense army nurse with several new charges rushed up to the Bataan front among them Joan Blondell and Ann Sothern. Fay Bainter played Sullavan's superior and she also was winding up her MGM contract as well.There are no substantial male roles in this film, they're seen briefly in fighting roles and of course as casualties. If you don't blink you'll see Robert Mitchum utter a couple of words and then die. Sullavan and Sothern have a rivalry going over an unseen army lieutenant.In fact on the set they had a rivalry going as well. According to a recent biography of Margaret Sullavan, she and Sothern did not get along so their scenes together had some real bite. Sullavan felt that Sothern was slipping into her popular Maisie character for which she was doing a B picture series for MGM. Cry Havoc should be seen because anything that has Margaret Sullavan should be seen as she left us way too few films for posterity. But this really is quite inferior to So Proudly We Hail.

dougdoepke WWII curiosity—an all female cast, and those men that do briefly appear are wounded servicemen dependent on the women. The girls are nurses in a field hospital in the Phillipines just as the islands are falling to the Japanese. They're volunteers recruited at the last minute as the bombs are falling. So we wonder how well these comely civilians in their mascara and lipstick will perform under extreme battlefield conditions.Good cast. But somehow the movie doesn't live up to the material's potential. As I see it, the problem lies with director Thorpe who films the dramatics from an impersonal distance as if it were still the stage play from which the movie was adapted. With the basically single set where the girls live, there's not much room to move about. So when the bombs fall or one of the girls freaks out, close-ups of personal reactions are needed, not a continuing group scene that disperses the emotion. There's a ton of dramatic material to engage with here, but too much is allowed to impersonally slip by.Nonetheless, it is an entertaining cast, especially the two dames, Blondell and Sothern. They're natural rivals with their sassy wisecracking that keep the audience amused amid the grimness. Sullavan with her husky voice and domineering demeanor makes an unusual screen presence, as does the rail-thin, sharply intelligent Marsha Hunt. I just wish the Japanese planes had let Blondell finish her mock striptease.The play was put together in 1942, the war's darkest period. This 1943 movie reflects many of these somber prospects, and is thus of some historical interest. Clearly, the purpose is to show that the girls can rise to wartime challenge as well as the boys, and by focusing on the women, we know the spirit comes from them and not from some male overseer. This is one of the few WWII films that really had me guessing about the ending. As it turns out, I failed. Nonetheless, there's enough suspense and good acting to make up for the parts that now (perhaps thankfully) seem dated and distant.

whpratt1 This was a great WW II film which supported the war effort in America as we were fighting Japan and Germany, huge evil threats to the world. This story revolves around some new nurses who have to experience bombing raids as they are about to eat their evening meals. Ann Southern, (Pat Conlin), Joan Blondell (Grace), Ella Raines (Connie Booth) and Marsha Hunt,(Flo Norris) "Chloe's Prayer",'05. All of these women had great careers in Hollywood, some were just character actresses like Marsha Hunt, who had a cute turned up nose and simply never got the man she fell in love with. During the Joseph McCarthy Era, when McCarthy was investigating actors for being associated with the Communist party, Marsha Hunt was placed on his Black List, which turned out to be a false story. This film is a definite look back at the past and the opportunity to see great actors just starting their careers on the Silver Screen in Hollywood.

haroldg-2 'Cry Havoc' is Richard Thorp's 1943 film about the courageous women Army nurses and volunteers on Bataan during WWII. The film suffers a bit from showing it's stage origins, but offers a terrific ensemble cast of actresses, all giving top-notch performances.Margaret Sullavan is wonderful as Lt. Smith, an Army nurse secretly married against the rules to an officer on Bataan. She is suffering from malignant malaria, but refuses to leave Bataan for treatment, wanting to be near her husband, but also unwilling to desert the overworked nurses and volunteers. Sullavan was always great at suffering nobly on film (as in 'Three Comrades,' 1938), and again gives a beautiful, moving performance as the dedicated nurse, keeping both her marriage and illness to herself.Ann Sothern and Joan Blondell share top billing with Sullavan and give terrific support as two of the volunteers. Blondell is funny as the former Vaudeville performer who entertains the other women with a demonstration of her old striptease act. And Ann Sothern, who was sooooooo beautiful, is marvelous as the tough, straight-talking waitress with her sights set on an Army officer, unaware he's Sullavan's husband.The supporting cast includes Fay Bainter, Marsha Hunt, Ella Raines, Heather Angel and Connie Gilcrest, all excellent, and a bit by young Robert Mitchum as a dying soldier.Not a classic WWII film, but recommended for fans of the actresses.