Home of the Brave (1949 film)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Home of the Brave is a 1949 war 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. The film takes its name from the last line of the "Star Spangled Banner" "And the home of the brave?"
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. The film utilizes the recurrent theme of a diverse group of men being subjected to the horror of war and their individual reactions, in this case, to the hell of jungle combat against the Japanese in World War II.
Plot
Undergoing psychoanalysis 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 bow to prejudice. Mingo and Moss decide to go into business together.
Cast
- Jeff Corey as Doctor
- James Edwards as Private Peter Moss
- Lloyd Bridges as Finch
- Douglas Dick as Major Robinson
- Frank Lovejoy as Sergeant Mingo
- Steve Brodie as T.J. Everett
- Cliff Clark as Colonel Baker