"Where the legend ends and the man begins."
The film portrays MacArthur's life from 1942, before the Battle of Bataan, to 1952, when he was removed from his Korean War command by President Truman for insubordination, and is recounted in flashback as he visits West Point.
Gregory Peck
Douglas MacArthur
Ivan Bonar
Lt. Gen. Richard K. Sutherland
Ward Costello
Gen. George C. Marshall
Nicolas Coster
Colonel Sidney Huff
Marj Dusay
Jean MacArthur
Ed Flanders
President Harry S. Truman
Warde Donovan
General Shepherd
Branscombe Richmond
Korean Soldier
Jerry Holland
Aide
The film portrays MacArthur's life from 1942, before the Battle of Bataan, to 1952, when he was removed from his Korean War command by President Truman for insubordination, and is recounted in flashback as he visits West Point.
Gregory Peck dons the uniform of the four/five star American General who rose to prominence in the far east theatre of operations during World War Two. We start with the Japanese over-running the Philippines and seeing him strategically withdraw to the relative safety of Australia. There he finds that there is little appetite in Washington to take the fight to the enemy, indeed there’s considerable uncertainty as to whether they can even defend Australia itself. Fortunately, his relationship with President Roosevelt (Dan O’Herlihy) sees his plan to invade Luzon approved and back he goes to press home the allies’ increasing advantage and, with the help of the atomic bomb, take the surrender. With Truman (Ed Flanders) now in the White House and troubles brewing in Korea between them and the Soviet-backed red Chinese, there are yet more eggshells for this officer to tread carefully upon as battle lines are being drawn both on that peninsula and back in a Washington anxious not to be drawn into anymore foreign wars. Meantime, his press officers are ensuring that he stays front and centre of the public agenda and there are even talks of him running for political office himself. This is all a rather dry chronology with Peck doing fine, but never really imbuing his character with much of the charisma that MacArthur himself undoubtedly had. Nor do we really get much of an insight into the geopolitics of the time, or of the scale of the fighting - which is largely left to a few archive inserts from warships. I suppose there are parallels to be drawn with George C. Scott’s depiction of “Patton” (1970) but this comes off very much the more lacklustre as it tells it’s story episodically.
The story of the senior-level preparations for the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944 from the time of Dwight D. Eisenhower's appointment as the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, to the establishment of the beachhead in Normandy.
Korean War, April 1953. Lieutenant Clemons, leader of the King company of the United States Infantry, is ordered to recapture Pork Chop Hill, occupied by a powerful Chinese Army force, while, just seventy miles away, at nearby the village of Panmunjom, a tense cease-fire conference is celebrated.
An Army colonel leads a guerrilla campaign against the Japanese in the Philippines.
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A chronicle of the Cristeros War (1926-1929), which was touched off by a rebellion against the Mexican government's attempt to secularize the country.
Lt. Col. Iceal "Ham" Hambleton is a weapons countermeasures expert and when his aircraft is shot over enemy territory the Air Force very much wants to get him back. Hambleton knows the area he's in is going to be carpet-bombed but a temporary shortage of helicopters causes a delay. Working with an Air Force reconnaissance pilot, Capt. Bartholomew Clark, he maps out an escape route.
At the turn of the 19th century, Pugilism was the sport of kings and a gifted young boxer fought his way to becoming champion of England.