Back to Bataan
The film begins with the then-recent US Army Ranger raid at Cabanatuan prisoner-of-war camp. The film then flashes back to March 1942.
As the U.S. Army under General MacArthur struggles to hold on at Bataan against the Japanese, Colonel Joseph Madden (John Wayne) orders one of his officers, Captain Andrés Bonifácio (Anthony Quinn), to shape up. Bonifácio has been under a strain because his sweetheart Dalisay Delgado (Fely Franquelli) is apparently collaborating with the Japanese, broadcasting propaganda over the radio.
Later, Madden is picked to slip through the lines to organize Filipinos to fight as guerrillas against the occupying Japanese forces. His commanding officer lets him know that Delgado is actually using the propaganda broadcasts to secretly transmit valuable information to them, but he is ordered to reveal that fact to no one, not even Bonifácio.
Madden makes contact with one group of Filipino resistance fighters, but as they set out to on their first mission, they encounter middle-aged American school teacher Bertha Barnes (Beulah Bondi). She and her students join the guerrillas after the Japanese hang Buenaventura Bello (Vladimir Sokoloff), the principal of her school and a dear friend, for refusing to take down the American flag.
Setting out on their first mission to destroy a Japanese gasoline dump, Madden and his men stumble upon the Bataan Death March and realize that Bataan has fallen. Many of the Filipinos lose heart, so to fan their will to fight, Madden finds and engineers the rescue of Captain Bonifácio from the Death March. Bonifácio happens to be the grandson of Andrés Bonifacio, a national hero. It works; for the group's first mission the guerrillas come to the Flilipino village and hang the Japanese officer who ordered the killing of Bello; and over the next year, Madden and his guerrillas attack Japanese outposts, supply depots, military airfields and other installations.
Major Hasko (Richard Loo), one of the Japanese commanders, attempts to appease the local population by staging a semi-independence ceremony to reduce popular support for the Filipino resistance. Madden, Bonifácio and the guerrillas attack the ceremony, where Dalisay finally reveals her true alliance when, during her radio broadcast, she urges her people to rise up against the Japanese. Most of the Japanese troops are killed in the raid, but young Filipino boy Maximo Cuenca (one of Barnes' students) is captured. After being beaten, he agrees to lead the Japanese to the Madden's hideout. However, as they near the spot, Maximo grabs the steering wheel of the Japanese truck, sending it careening down a mountainside. He dies in the arms of Miss Barnes.
Later, Colonel Madden is ordered out of the field, leaving Captain Bonifácio in command of the Filipino resistance. Several months later in October 1944, Bonifácio and his group travel to Leyte, where rumors are circulating of the impending American invasion to liberate the Philippines. After arriving on Leyte, Bonifácio is reunited with Madden. They are given the mission of taking and holding a small village to block Japanese reinforcements from repelling the impending American landing.
By trickery, Madden, Bonifácio and their men engage and defeat the Japanese garrison in a fierce pitched battle. However, two enemy soldiers get away on a motorcycle to spread the alarm. Japanese tanks and soldiers attack. The defenders manage to knock out most of the tanks, but are on the verge of being forced to retreat. Just when all seems lost, American reinforcements and tanks arrive and turn the tide of the battle.
The film closes with another short montage of several of the actual released Americans from the Cabanatuan prison camp.
cult, violence