Product Review

Back to Bataan is a 1945 World War II war film, directed by Edward Dmytryk and starring John Wayne and Anthony Quinn. It depicts events (some fictionalized and some actual) that took place after the Battle of Bataan (1941-42) on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. The working title of the film was The Invisible Army. The film begins with the then recent US Army Ranger raid at Cabanatuan prisoner-of-war camp. The film then flashes back to 1942. As American forces under General MacArthur are forced to pull out of Bataan, Colonel Joseph Madden (John Wayne) of the U.S. Army, stays behind to organize guerrilla fighters against the occupying Japanese forces in the Philippines. Madden teams up with Filipino resistance fighters to liberate POWs from Cabanatuan. One of his officers, Captain Andrés Bonifácio (Anthony Quinn), carries a heavy burden. Not only does he have to live up to being the grandson of Andrés Bonifacio a national hero, but his former fiancée Dalisay Delgado (Fely Franquelli) is apparently collaborating with the Japanese, broadcasting propaganda over the radio. (In actuality, Ms. Delgado was also using the propaganda broadcasts as a means to relay sensitive information to the Filipino resistance without incurring Japanese suspicions - a fact known only to Col. Madden and his superiors.)