Film of Emporian’s war book shown tonight
Film of Emporian’s war book shown tonight
By Bobbi Mlynar (Contact)
Originally published 01:22 p.m., November 8, 2007
Updated 01:22 p.m., November 8, 2007
For years, “They Were Expendable” was required reading for eighth-grade students at the old Lowther Middle School. Tonight, area residents can see the film version of the book during a showing offered as part of Veterans Tribute Week activities.
The book, by former Gazette editor and publisher William Lindsay White, was published in 1942 and was made into a movie in 1945 by acclaimed director John Ford. The cast included Robert Montgomery, John Wayne, Donna Reed, Jack Holt, Ward Bond, Leon Ames and other well-known actors of the time.
Frank Wead wrote the screenplay for the movie, which can be seen at 7 p.m. today in Room 408 of Plumb Hall at Emporia State University. The film found a degree of success when it was released Dec. 20, 1945, a few months after the end of World War II.
Beyond its cast of stars, technical aspects of the movie found acclaim. Douglas Shearer was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Sound category, and Donald Jahraus, R.A. McDonald and A. Arnold Gillespie were nominated for their special effects. The New York Times in 1945 designated the movie as one of its “10 Best Films” in 1945.
Online reviewers as recently as last year said of the film, “It doesn’t get any better or (more) realistic than this. It might be the best war movie of all time. Great cast and direction. The total reality of war in the Philippines.”
On www.amazon.com, seven reviewers unanimously gave the book a five-star rating as an excellent read. The book grew from White’s interviews with four sailors who survived brutal circumstances as they tried to keep Japanese at bay in the Philippines, even though they had been deserted, for the most part, by their commanders as a result of an Allied decision to focus energies on the European Theater. The men, White found, were expendable as individuals to the United States’ war effort, as were other young men and women who served in all branches of the military.
In the film, the men’s PT boat squadron is sent to evacuate Gen. Douglas MacArthur and other high-ranking officers from Bataan and Corregidor. After completing their assignment, they resume their attacks on the Japanese, who eventually whittle the squadron down to a handful of men and a single boat.
White had covered the war primarily for CBS radio, and won the broadcast equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize for his body of work from the European Theater. Some sources say that he initially wrote “They Were Expendable” for Reader’s Digest, for which he also served for many years as a roving editor.
Two other books written by W.L. White were made into movies. One, “Journey for Margaret,” starring Robert Young, Laraine Day and a young Margaret O’Brien, was based on the true story of White’s bringing home a war orphan whom he and his wife, Kathrine, adopted. The third movie, “Lost Boundaries,” was released in 1949. It starred Beatrice Pearson, Mel Ferrer, and Susan Douglas Rubes.
It was based on White’s book relating the story of Dr. Albert Chandler Johnston. Johnston, who graduated from Rush Medical College, was a member of a black family that passed for white while living in New Hampshire, according to a review of the film. “Lost Boundaries” won the 1949 Cannes Film Festival award for best screenplay. Playwrights for the film were White and Furlaud deKay, Eugene Ling, Charles Palmer and Virginia Shaler.
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