22 Apr So Proudly We Hail
(1943) The movie So Proudly We Hail is the story of the “Angels of Bataan” … the nurses who served in Bataan and Corregidor. It is based on a book written by a World War II nurse, Juanita Hipps, who was there. Colonel Hipps was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in 1979.
So Proudly We Hail, WWII Movie starring Claudette Colbert
This film is about eight nurses who got out … and just barely. The year was 1942. Others were captured and spent the rest of the war as prisoners, continuing to nurse.
One interesting fact: Claudette Colbert’s love interest was George Reeves. It would be eight years before he became Superman.
According to this TCM article, the Office of War Information was very careful about what information would be included in the movie … what the public would be allowed to see.
My favorite NYT wartime movie critic, Bosley Crowther, wrote that the movie does “give a shattering impression of the tragedy of Bataan.” Of course, we were well into the war with Japan when the book and the movie came out. The world knew about the Bataan Death March but not all the atrocities that our men and women would suffer by the end of it all.
So Proudly We Hail: Cinema Classics at amazon.com
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