HOME OF THE BRAVE Movie Review

1949 Mark Robson

If this curious little drama lived up to its intentions, it might have been an important war film. But it falls far short and is now little more than a footnote in Hollywood's attempts to deal with American racism. Director Mark Robson starts out with two strikes against him. First, Carl Foreman's script is based on Arthur Laurents's curiously contrived stage play. Second, Laurents's play is about anti-Semitism, and though it is easy to say that all bigotry springs from the one source, discrimination against black people is different from discrimination against Jewish people. To claim that they are the same misunderstands both.

The action takes place on nameless islands in the Pacific. In the opening scenes, a psychiatrist (Jeff Corey) tries to find out how Peter Moss (James Edwards), a black soldier, came to be paralyzed from the waist down. Moss is also amnesiac and so can't remember what happened on his last mission. Maj. Robinson (Douglas Dick) and Mingo (Frank Lovejoy) tell the doctor what they know. They say that it was a reconnaissance patrol to an island held by the Japanese. Robinson picked Mingo, Finch (Lloyd Bridges), and T.J. Everett (Steve Brodie) to “volunteer” from his outfit. He had recruited Moss, an engineer from another division, to make maps of the island. Robinson was then surprised to learn that Moss was “colored.” T.J. is openly racist, but it turns out that Finch and Moss are old pals from high school, where they played basketball together. Tensions within the group rise to the surface as soon as they're dropped on the island.

Neither the depiction of jungle warfare nor the racial attitudes are remotely believable. Men on sentry duty at night chatter away like schoolchildren and smoke cigarettes constantly. T.J.'s expressions of racism and Moss's reactions are equally simplistic and false. And when, finally, the reasons for the paralysis are revealed, audiences today will groan in disbelief. The resolution of the conflicts piles improbability upon improbability.

That said, the filmmakers do deserve credit for addressing racial issues at a time when the entertainment industry generally ignored them, and when segregation was the law of the land. The active recruitment of black soldiers, sailors, and airmen during World War II played a large part in changing that, and the stories of that change have yet to be fully told. Home of the Brave is a small first step.

Cast: Lloyd Bridges (Finch), James Edwards (Peter Moss), Frank Lovejoy (Mingo), Jeff Corey (Doctor), Douglas Dick (Maj. Robinson), Steve Brodie (T.J.), Cliff Clark (Colonel); Written by: Carl Foreman; Cinematography by: Robert De Grasse; Music by: Dimitri Tiomkin. Producer: Stanley Kramer, United Artists. Running Time: 86 minutes. Format: VHS, Beta, LV.