Home of the Brave (1949 film)
Encyclopedia
Home of the Brave is a 1949 film based on a 1946 play by Arthur Laurents
. It was directed by Mark Robson
and stars Douglas Dick
, Jeff Corey
, Lloyd Bridges
, Frank Lovejoy
, James Edwards
, and Steve Brodie
. The original play featured the protagonist
being Jewish rather than black.
The National Board of Review
named the film the eighth best of 1949.
Home of the Brave utilizes the recurrent theme of a diverse group of men being subjected to the horror of war and their individual reactions, in this case, the hell of jungle combat against the Japanese in World War II.
by an Army psychiatrist
(Corey), paralyzed Black war veteran Private Peter Moss (Edwards) begins to walk again only when he confronts his fear of forever being an "outsider."
The film uses flashback
techniques to show Moss, an Engineer
topography
specialist assigned to a reconnaissance
patrol
who are clandestinely
landed from a PT boat
on a Japanese-held island in the South Pacific to prepare the island for a major amphibious landing. The patrol is led by a young major (Dick) and includes Moss's lifelong white friend Finch (Bridges), whose death leaves him racked with guilt; redneck-bigot corporal T.J. (Brodie); and sturdy but troubled Sergeant Mingo (Lovejoy).
When the patrol is discovered Finch is left behind and captured by the Japanese who force him to cry out to the patrol. The dying Finch escapes and dies in Moss's arms. In a firefight
with the Japanese, Mingo is wounded in the arm and Moss is unable to walk. T.J. carries Moss to the returning PT boat that covers the men with its twin .50 calibre machine guns.
In the film's crucial scene, the doctor forces Moss to overcome his paralysis by yelling a racial slur. From this point on, Moss will never again kowtow to prejudice. Mingo and Moss decide to go into business together.
spent World War II with the Army Pictorial Service based at the film studio
in Astoria, Queens
and rose to the rank of sergeant. After his discharge he wrote a play called Home of the Brave in nine consecutive nights that was inspired by a photograph of GIs in a South Pacific
jungle
. The drama about anti-semitism
in the military opened on Broadway
on December 27, 1945 and ran for 69 performances.
When Laurents sold the rights to Hollywood, he was told that the lead character would be turned from Jewish into black because "Jews have been done".
Producer Stanley Kramer
filmed in secrecy under the working title
of High Noon. The film was completed in thirty days for the cost of US$525,000 with Kramer using three different units at the same time. The majority of the film was made on indoor sets except for the climax that took place on Malibu beach with a former navy PT boat. Associate Producer Robert Stillman financed the film with the help of his father without the usual procedure of borrowing funds from banks.
Home of the Brave managed to combine three of the top film genres of 1949: the war film
, the psychological drama, and the problems of African-Americans. It was the first Hollywood movie to be allowed to use the word "nigger" after The Emperor Jones
(with the 1934 establishment of the Hays Code, the word had been forbidden by censors).
Director Robson, who had begun his directing career with several Val Lewton
RKO horror films brings a frighting feeling to the claustrophobic jungle
set with Dimitri Tiomkin providing an eerie choral rendition of Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
performed by the Jester Hairston
choir as the patrol escapes their Japanese pursuers.
In the movie's final scene, Sergeant Mingo recites Eve Merriam
's 1943 poem The Coward to Private Moss in friendship: "Divided we fall, united we stand; coward take my coward's hand." The New York Herald Tribune
reported that a man named Herbert Tweedy imitated the sound of twelve different birds native to the South Pacific for the film.
had ordered the U.S. Armed Forces to be fully integrated in 1948.
Arthur Laurents
Arthur Laurents was an American playwright, stage director and screenwriter.After writing scripts for radio shows after college and then training films for the U.S...
. It was directed by Mark Robson
Mark Robson
Mark Robson was a Canadian-born film editor, film director and producer in Hollywood.-Career:Born in Montreal, Quebec, he moved to the United States at a young age. He studied at the University of California, Los Angeles then found work in the prop department at 20th Century Fox studios...
and stars Douglas Dick
Douglas Dick
Douglas Dick is a retired American actor.- Career :Douglas Dick is best known for his role as Carl Herrick in the TV series Waterfront , and as Kenneth Lawrence in the Alfred Hitchcock film Rope .He was married to Ronnie Cowan until their 1960 divorce, and to television screenwriter Peggy Chantler...
, Jeff Corey
Jeff Corey
Jeff Corey was an American stage and screen actor and director who became a well-respected acting teacher after being blacklisted in the 1950s.-Biography:...
, Lloyd Bridges
Lloyd Bridges
Lloyd Vernet Bridges, Jr. was an American actor who starred in a number of television series and appeared in more than 150 feature films. Bridges is best known for his role of Mike Nelson in Sea Hunt, the most-popular syndicated American TV series in 1958...
, Frank Lovejoy
Frank Lovejoy
Frank Lovejoy was an American actor in radio, film, and television. He was born Frank Lovejoy Jr. in Bronx, New York, but grew up in New Jersey. His father, Frank Lovejoy Sr., was a furniture salesman from Maine...
, James Edwards
James Edwards (actor)
James Edwards was an African American actor in films and television. His most famous role was as Private Peter Moss in the 1949 film Home of the Brave, in which he portrayed a soldier experiencing racial prejudice while serving in the South Pacific during World War II...
, and Steve Brodie
Steve Brodie (actor)
Steve Brodie was an American movie and television actor.Born John Stevenson in El Dorado, Kansas, he took his screen name from the Steve Brodie who claimed that he jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge in 1886 and survived...
. The original play featured the protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
being Jewish rather than black.
The National Board of Review
National Board of Review Awards 1949
- Top Ten Films :#The Bicycle Thief#The Quiet One#Intruder in the Dust#The Heiress#Devil in the Flesh#Quartet#Germany Year Zero#Home of the Brave#A Letter to Three Wives#The Fallen Idol- Winners :...
named the film the eighth best of 1949.
Home of the Brave utilizes the recurrent theme of a diverse group of men being subjected to the horror of war and their individual reactions, in this case, the hell of jungle combat against the Japanese in World War II.
Plot
Undergoing psychoanalysisPsychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
by an Army psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
(Corey), paralyzed Black war veteran Private Peter Moss (Edwards) begins to walk again only when he confronts his fear of forever being an "outsider."
The film uses flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
techniques to show Moss, an Engineer
United States Army Corps of Engineers
The United States Army Corps of Engineers is a federal agency and a major Army command made up of some 38,000 civilian and military personnel, making it the world's largest public engineering, design and construction management agency...
topography
Topography
Topography is the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those ofplanets, moons, and asteroids...
specialist assigned to a reconnaissance
Reconnaissance
Reconnaissance is the military term for exploring beyond the area occupied by friendly forces to gain information about enemy forces or features of the environment....
patrol
Patrol
A patrol is commonly a group of personnel, such as police officers or soldiers, that are assigned to monitor a specific geographic area.- Military :...
who are clandestinely
Clandestine operation
A clandestine operation is an intelligence or military operation carried out in such a way that the operation goes unnoticed.The United States Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms defines "clandestine operation" as "An operation sponsored or conducted by governmental...
landed from a PT boat
PT boat
PT Boats were a variety of motor torpedo boat , a small, fast vessel used by the United States Navy in World War II to attack larger surface ships. The PT boat squadrons were nicknamed "the mosquito fleet". The Japanese called them "Devil Boats".The original pre–World War I torpedo boats were...
on a Japanese-held island in the South Pacific to prepare the island for a major amphibious landing. The patrol is led by a young major (Dick) and includes Moss's lifelong white friend Finch (Bridges), whose death leaves him racked with guilt; redneck-bigot corporal T.J. (Brodie); and sturdy but troubled Sergeant Mingo (Lovejoy).
When the patrol is discovered Finch is left behind and captured by the Japanese who force him to cry out to the patrol. The dying Finch escapes and dies in Moss's arms. In a firefight
Firefight
Firefight may refer to:* firefight, a large exchange of bullets between two sides * Firefighting, process of extinguishing destructive flames* A game mode in Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach video games...
with the Japanese, Mingo is wounded in the arm and Moss is unable to walk. T.J. carries Moss to the returning PT boat that covers the men with its twin .50 calibre machine guns.
In the film's crucial scene, the doctor forces Moss to overcome his paralysis by yelling a racial slur. From this point on, Moss will never again kowtow to prejudice. Mingo and Moss decide to go into business together.
Production
Arthur LaurentsArthur Laurents
Arthur Laurents was an American playwright, stage director and screenwriter.After writing scripts for radio shows after college and then training films for the U.S...
spent World War II with the Army Pictorial Service based at the film studio
Kaufman Astoria Studios
The Kaufman Astoria Studios is an historic movie studio located in the Astoria section of the New York City borough of Queens.-History:It was originally built by Famous Players-Lasky in 1920 to provide the company with a facility close to the Broadway theater district. Many features and short...
in Astoria, Queens
Astoria, Queens
Astoria is a neighborhood in the northwestern corner of the borough of Queens in New York City. Located in Community Board 1, Astoria is bounded by the East River and is adjacent to three other Queens neighborhoods: Long Island City, Sunnyside , and Woodside...
and rose to the rank of sergeant. After his discharge he wrote a play called Home of the Brave in nine consecutive nights that was inspired by a photograph of GIs in a South Pacific
South West Pacific theatre of World War II
The South West Pacific Theatre, technically the South West Pacific Area, between 1942 and 1945, was one of two designated area commands and war theatres enumerated by the Combined Chiefs of Staff of World War II in the Pacific region....
jungle
Jungle
A Jungle is an area of land in the tropics overgrown with dense vegetation.The word jungle originates from the Sanskrit word jangala which referred to uncultivated land. Although the Sanskrit word refers to "dry land", it has been suggested that an Anglo-Indian interpretation led to its...
. The drama about anti-semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
in the military opened on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
on December 27, 1945 and ran for 69 performances.
When Laurents sold the rights to Hollywood, he was told that the lead character would be turned from Jewish into black because "Jews have been done".
Producer Stanley Kramer
Stanley Kramer
Stanley Earl Kramer was an American film director and producer. Kramer was responsible for some of Hollywood's most famous "message" movies...
filmed in secrecy under the working title
Working title
A working title, sometimes called a production title, is the temporary name of a product or project used during its development, usually used in filmmaking, television production, novel, video game, or music album.-Purpose:...
of High Noon. The film was completed in thirty days for the cost of US$525,000 with Kramer using three different units at the same time. The majority of the film was made on indoor sets except for the climax that took place on Malibu beach with a former navy PT boat. Associate Producer Robert Stillman financed the film with the help of his father without the usual procedure of borrowing funds from banks.
Home of the Brave managed to combine three of the top film genres of 1949: the war film
War film
War films are a film genre concerned with warfare, usually about naval, air or land battles, sometimes focusing instead on prisoners of war, covert operations, military training or other related subjects. At times war films focus on daily military or civilian life in wartime without depicting battles...
, the psychological drama, and the problems of African-Americans. It was the first Hollywood movie to be allowed to use the word "nigger" after The Emperor Jones
The Emperor Jones (1933 film)
The Emperor Jones is a 1933 film adaptation of the Eugene O'Neill play of the same title, directed by Dudley Murphy, featuring Paul Robeson, Dudley Digges, Frank H. Wilson, and Fredi Washington. The screenplay was written by DuBose Heyward and filmed at Kaufman Astoria Studios with the beach scene...
(with the 1934 establishment of the Hays Code, the word had been forbidden by censors).
Director Robson, who had begun his directing career with several Val Lewton
Val Lewton
Val Lewton was an American film producer and screenwriter, best known for a string of low-budget horror films he produced for RKO Pictures in the 1940s.-Early life:...
RKO horror films brings a frighting feeling to the claustrophobic jungle
Jungle
A Jungle is an area of land in the tropics overgrown with dense vegetation.The word jungle originates from the Sanskrit word jangala which referred to uncultivated land. Although the Sanskrit word refers to "dry land", it has been suggested that an Anglo-Indian interpretation led to its...
set with Dimitri Tiomkin providing an eerie choral rendition of Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
"Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" is a traditional Negro spiritual.The song dates back to the era of slavery in the United States when it was common practice to sell children of slaves away from their parents. An early performance of the song dates back to the 1870s by the Fisk Jubilee...
performed by the Jester Hairston
Jester Hairston
Jester Joseph Hairston was an American composer, songwriter, arranger, choral conductor, and actor. His notable compositions include "Amen," a gospel-tinged theme from the film Lilies of the Field and a 1963 hit for The Impressions, and the Christmas song "Mary's Boy Child".-Early life:Hairston...
choir as the patrol escapes their Japanese pursuers.
In the movie's final scene, Sergeant Mingo recites Eve Merriam
Eve Merriam
-Writing career:Merriam's first book was the 1946 Family Circle, which won the Yale Younger Poets Prize.Her book, The Inner City Mother Goose, was described as one of the most banned books of the time. It inspired a 1971 Broadway musical called Inner City and a 1982 musical production called Street...
's 1943 poem The Coward to Private Moss in friendship: "Divided we fall, united we stand; coward take my coward's hand." The New York Herald Tribune
New York Herald Tribune
The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald.Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly , and the Whig Party's Log Cabin.The paper was home to...
reported that a man named Herbert Tweedy imitated the sound of twelve different birds native to the South Pacific for the film.
Legacy
In a topical decision, President Truman's Executive Order 9981Executive Order 9981
Executive Order 9981 is an executive order issued on July 26, 1948 by U.S. President Harry S. Truman. It expanded on Executive Order 8802 by establishing equality of treatment and opportunity in the Armed Services for people of all races, religions, or national origins."In 1947, Randolph, along...
had ordered the U.S. Armed Forces to be fully integrated in 1948.
External links
- The Coward http://thebestamericanpoetry.typepad.com/the_best_american_poetry/2008/07/the-coward-by-e.html