09 Dec First Yank into Tokyo
(1945) An Army pilot who grew up in Japan is recruited to sneak into a Tokyo concentration camp to rescue an American scientist who has been working on the atomic bomb. Such a mission would be impossible if it weren’t for the fact that “Major Ross” grew up in Japan and speaks the language fluently. Oh yes, and of course he undergoes irreversible plastic surgery so that he will look the part.
It was a nutso plot, but I stuck it out and actually enjoyed the implausibility of the story. There was plenty of bashing of the Japanese, so politically correct in 1945. At the very end we see the mushroom cloud of the atomic bomb, the movie coming out just over a month after the actual event.
Barbara Hale as an army nurse was the requisite love interest. Ms. Hale was best known for her role as Della Street in the Perry Mason television series,
Actor Tom Neal played Major Ross. He had a rough personal life, I learned. According to Wikipedia, his first wife divorced him in 1949 for mental and physical cruelty. Then, over the affections of an actress, he bludgeoned actor Franchot Tone into an 18-hour coma. Tone ended up marrying the actress, but she left him after 53 days and went back to Neal. The drama continued and essentially ended Tom Neal’s acting career. Then in 1965 he was convicted of manslaughter for shooting his 3rd wife in the head. He served six years and died of heart failure in 1972.
Now that sounds like another movie plot that no one would believe.
First Yank Into Tokyo [VHS] at amazon.com
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