Three Came Home
Directed by Jean Negulesco
Written by Nunnally Johnson from a book by Agnes Newton Keith
1950/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Amazon Prime
[box] [first lines] Agnes Newton Keith: Six-degrees north of the Equator, in the heart of the East Indies, lies Sandakan, the tiny capital of British North Borneo. In Sandakan in 1941, there were 15 thousand Asiatics, 79 Europeans, and 1 American. I was the American. [/box]
Claudette Colbert is always great as this type of woman surviving against enormous odds.
Harry Keith (Patrick Knowles) works as a government official in British Borneo, accompanied by his wife Agnes (Colbert) and their adorable four-year-old son. Agnes previously published a book about life in Borneo which took a sympathetic view of Asians. When the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, the European residents of Borneo spend most of their time preparing for invasion. It comes quickly enough.
After a few weeks of unpredictable treatment by the Japanese on the island. The Europeans are ordered to prepare to be transported to another location. Before they are, Agnes is ordered to present herself to the commanding officer for the local theater, Colonel Suga (Sessue Hayakawa). It turns out he admired her book and wants a copy with her autograph. We also find out he was educated in the U.S. and has small children at home in Japan.
Agnes’s pleasant chat with Suga does her no good whatsoever. The women and men are first put in separate and adjacent camps. They can make highly dangerous attempts to meet but mostly spend their time worrying, starving, and suffering from malaria.
Then things get worse after they are again moved. They must survive years of separation, malnutrition and hard labor. We see the women eating garbage, which they regard as a lucky treat. Agnes is attacked in the dark by a Japanese soldier with rape on his mind. She uses another meeting with Suga to complain. This backfires on her in a big way when Suga is no longer around. The title gives away the ending.
I tend to like POW stories and this was no exception. It is very well done and Colbert is outstanding.
The complete film is also currently available on YouTube.
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