Cry 'Havoc'
Tags: romantic

Plot synopsis:
The film tells the story of a mixed group of Army nurses stationed in Bataan during World War II. At the beginning of the film, the head nurse, Lt. Mary Smith (Margaret Sullavan) begs her superior, Capt. Alice Marsh (Fay Bainter), for more nurses to help deal with the excessive workload, but instead of professional nurses, she is assigned a group of civilians from various backgrounds. They lack experience and require training and find it difficult to settle in. Pat Conlin (Ann Sothern) rebels against Lt. Smith's strict nature, but the group begin to reveal stories from their past and become better acquainted. They also meet a male officer, Lt. Holt (Allan Byron). Pat becomes infatuated with him, leading to jealousy between her and Lt. Smith who refuses to explain why she is offended by Pat's attention to him. During an air-raid one of the volunteers, Sue West (Dorothy Morris), is separated from the group, and some of the women, including her sister Andra (Heather Angel) search for her. After three days, she is found alive, having spent the time trapped in a hut with the corpses of several soldiers who were killed during the attack.
The hardships bring the women closer, and they discuss their hopes for the future. Grace (Joan Blondell), a former burlesque performer, dances for the group to break the tension. Sue remains in a state of shock following her ordeal, and this is compounded when the hospital is attacked again. Grace is injured, and in a later attack, Connie (Ella Raines) is killed. An opportunity arises for all of the women to leave Bataan to Corregidor, but after some discussion, they all decide to remain and help as best they can. Lt. Smith becomes ill with malaria, and in her delirium reveals to Flo that she was married to Lt. Holt and that they were keeping their marriage a secret due to a military regulation that prevented married couples from serving together. When the group learns that Lt. Holt has been killed, both Pat and Lt. Smith are grief-stricken. The hospital is surrounded by Japanese forces and the nurses forced to surrender.

Review: As a patriotic exercise in morale rising this film does a good job even though it is downbeat but as an opportunity to see an amazing group of actresses gathered together it can't be beat.With its almost totally female cast, a very young Robert Mitchum just starting out is in and out of the picture in about a minute, this is a rare bird indeed.
The great Margaret Sullavan in her second to last feature is fantastic as the outwardly tough nurse Smitty who is hiding many secrets.
Two of the best character actresses the movies ever had, Fay Bainter and Connie Gilchrist, don't have much too do but inject their special touch into their scenes.
These women are going through hell and the ending leaves little doubt that their struggles are far from over but that their courage helped to win the war.
What makes the 1943 WWII drama,"Cry,Havoc", offbeat is that it deals with a subject of the war that was rarely talked about then or now.
"Cry,Havoc" was based on a fairly successful stage play, which explains why the film is set primarily in the confines of an underground bomb shelter.
Lieutenant Mary "Smitty" Smith(Margaret Sullavan) desperately needs more experienced nurses at an army hospital in Bataan.
The cast includes: Margaret Sullavan, Ann Sothern, Joan Blondell, Fay Bainter, Marsha Hunt,and Heather Angel.
Here she plays Pat Conlin, a tough, headstrong nurse,who thinks she knows the severity of war.
'Cry Havoc' is Richard Thorp's 1943 film about the courageous women Army nurses and volunteers on Bataan during WWII.
The film suffers a bit from showing it's stage origins, but offers a terrific ensemble cast of actresses, all giving top-notch performances.Margaret Sullavan is wonderful as Lt. Smith, an Army nurse secretly married against the rules to an officer on Bataan.
She is suffering from malignant malaria, but refuses to leave Bataan for treatment, wanting to be near her husband, but also unwilling to desert the overworked nurses and volunteers.
Sullavan was always great at suffering nobly on film (as in 'Three Comrades,' 1938), and again gives a beautiful, moving performance as the dedicated nurse, keeping both her marriage and illness to herself.Ann Sothern and Joan Blondell share top billing with Sullavan and give terrific support as two of the volunteers.
And Ann Sothern, who was sooooooo beautiful, is marvelous as the tough, straight-talking waitress with her sights set on an Army officer, unaware he's Sullavan's husband.The supporting cast includes Fay Bainter, Marsha Hunt, Ella Raines, Heather Angel and Connie Gilcrest, all excellent, and a bit by young Robert Mitchum as a dying soldier.Not a classic WWII film, but recommended for fans of the actresses..
Other films that should be viewed in the same era include Bataan, So Proudly They Hail, Purple Heart, Wake Island, etc..
Very good film about women in war.
Two movies were made, and two books have been written about this group, referred to as the "Angels of Bataan." There are significant differences between the films, and the books.
An Army nurse, Lt. Juanita Redmond, who was among the evacuees from Corregidor, wrote the first book, "I Served on Bataan." It covered the five months from the Japanese attack of the Philippines on Dec.8, 1941, to the fall of Corregidor.
The book and movie were about the ordeal of the nurses over those five months, first on Bataan and then on Corregidor.
Although no nurses were killed, some were wounded as the Japanese continually shelled and bombed the Allied defenses.The second book is more recent.
MGM came out with it in February 1944 – five months after "So Proudly We Hail." It was based on a play that ran for just 11 performances over Christmas of 1942.
In this film, most of the women are not nurses but are civilians who answered a call for volunteers to help the nurses on Bataan.
And, this film ends with the women being captured in the fall of Bataan.
But "Cry Havoc" also is a good telling and showing of the peril, ordeal and heroism of women serving in time of war."We Band of Angels" is still available from book stores.
WWII curiosityan all female cast, and those men that do briefly appear are wounded servicemen dependent on the women.
As I see it, the problem lies with director Thorpe who films the dramatics from an impersonal distance as if it were still the stage play from which the movie was adapted.
Like the Paramount film, Cry Havoc deals with nurses in the Phillipines after Pearl Harbor and their experiences during the Japanese attack.Margaret Sullavan was fulfilling the terms of an MGM contract with this movie.
Afterwards she would concentrate on the stage and would only do one more film years later, No Sad Songs For Me. She plays the no nonsense army nurse with several new charges rushed up to the Bataan front among them Joan Blondell and Ann Sothern.
Fay Bainter played Sullavan's superior and she also was winding up her MGM contract as well.There are no substantial male roles in this film, they're seen briefly in fighting roles and of course as casualties.
According to a recent biography of Margaret Sullavan, she and Sothern did not get along so their scenes together had some real bite.
Cry Havoc should be seen because anything that has Margaret Sullavan should be seen as she left us way too few films for posterity.
All of these women had great careers in Hollywood, some were just character actresses like Marsha Hunt, who had a cute turned up nose and simply never got the man she fell in love with.
CRY HAVOC follows in the tradition of films like SO PROUDLY WE HAIL by dealing exclusively with nurses in the Philippines on active duty during WWII.
MARGARET SULLAVAN is the lieutenant in charge of a group of gals including ANN SOTHERN, ELLA RAINES, FRANCES GIFFORD and JOAN BLONDELL, all of whom are inexperienced but have to learn the ropes fast during wartime bombardments.Based on a play, it barely shows its stage origins and presents a gritty story of nurses under stress doing the best they can under dire circumstances.
Watch for ROBERT MITCHUM in a brief unbilled bit as a dying soldier.Sullavan and Sothern argue over Sothern's infatuation for a man Sullavan loves and there's some trite dialog among the all-female cast when they get to exchange stories--but it's still an above average melodrama of women nurses during war.Summing up: Worth it for the gritty wartime bombardments and interesting cast, but don't expect anything great.
In calling "So Proudly We Hail" 'superior' to "Cry Havoc," the writer overlooks the fact that, as in most Golden Era films, women's stories were almost exclusively told in relation to their romantic relationships with men.
What hobbles "So Proudly We Hail" (and it is a terrific film, don't get me wrong), is its constant undercutting the challenges and dangers faced by WWII American nurses in the Pacific by shifting the characters' priorities to romance.
So in some ways, although "Havoc" could be considered more static and talky (from its stage origins, as mentioned above), I find it "better" than "Proudly," because I feel it lets the women stand front and center -- and stay there.
*****NO SPOILERS HERE*** A cast of some top actresses make up the ensemble of "Cry Havoc," a film about war nurses and volunteers in Bataan, their courage, hard work, and sacrifices.
Margaret Sullavan heads the cast in her second to last film.
She is joined by Fay Bainter, Ann Sothern, Joan Blondell, Ella Raines, Marsha Hunt, and others.Even today, this is a difficult film to watch, and one can really feel the dirt, the fear, the hunger, the frustration, and the sorrow these women experienced.
I can't imagine the impact when it was first released during World War II.We know that the World War II films produced in the '40s were whitewashed - men who were on the actual Bataan Death March think movies depicting it are a joke, and there was certainly nothing produced like "Saving Private Ryan" back then.
I have no idea whether "Cry Havoc" was an accurate depiction of life at war but it presented nothing romantic, desirable, or pretty, except for the very brave nurses who represented the real thing serving our country in World War II.***SPOILERS AHEAD****Though the ending of the film is somewhat depressing, nurses who served at Bataan and were taken prisoner were treated with great respect by the Japanese, and worked in an internment hospital until they were evacuated.
Some of the brightest female stars of the 1940's get a chance to get dirt on their Max Factor faces in this "Women in War" drama which took them to Bataan, the location of a Robert Taylor war movie made the same year.
Here, the women are nurses, brought out to aid head nurse Margaret Sullavan and her commanding officer (Fay Bainter), and conflict arises to the difference in their personalities.
However, in wartime, everybody must pull their weight, put aside petty squabbles, and band together for the cause.In addition to Sullavan and Bainter are the billed above the title Ann Sothern and Joan Blondell whose on-screen personalities were so alike that they sometimes seemed like sisters working at separate studios.
Since she had been at MGM for more than just a few years, Sothern gets more meat to bite into with her part, Blondell simply adding a bit of comic relief to the wisecracks which seemed to be tossed up in the air for either her or Sothern to catch.There are some very tense moments here where the women are pretty much all alone, no American or other Ally soldiers there to protect them from the villainous Japanese.
This is where the film becomes very similar to Paramount's "So Proudly We Hail" which is certainly superior dramatically.
Both rank equal in nail-biting emotion as to the fate of these lovelies who may be able to flip acid off of their tongue to deal with the others but won't be able to defend themselves against the enemy that surrounds them.The always colorful Connie Gilchrist adds color as the cook, giving motherly advice towards the girls who venture into her kitchen, while Bainter provides a mentor-ship towards the women, especially the somewhat hard Sullavan.
Like "So Proudly We Hail", this contains a rather downbeat ending which is certainly within the reality of war and opens all kinds of thoughts as to what might be in store for these women..
Needless to say, this war-time drama is gritty every step of the way.The big surprise here is the toughness of the part given to Ann Sothern.She certainly sheds her "Panama Hattie" way as well as comedic gifts in giving a very good performance as a no-nonsense volunteer among a group of women volunteering their services in Bataan during World War 11.
This part was perfect for Sullavan who would commit suicide 17 years later.Joan Blondell, as always, is wonderful as the volunteer who was a burlesque queen prior to the war.
It's a well-staged play about a dozen or so nurses trapped on the Bataan peninsula in 1942, short of medicine, short of love, short of everything except Japanese bombs and the rumble of their tanks as they draw nearer.
The structure, while offering nothing much new, does a good job of building suspense until the final surrender.It's the distaff side of "Bataan", released the same year, 1943, except that "Cry Havoc" is a bit less hysterical in its hatred.
The Japanese may bomb a hospital but at least none of the nurses refers to them as "bandy legged monkeys" as Robert Taylor does in "Bataan."It's not surprising that this group is as diverse and one-dimensional as the men of "Bataan." Let's see.
The whole story isn't badly done.The title is from Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar": Caesar's spirit will return and "Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war." Two movie titles right there..
Any film with Margaret Sullavan is worth watching, but.....
Probably this silly business was in the original play, but if it wasn't, then Hollywood owes an apology to the movie going public for spoiling this tribute to the nurses and volunteers who served on Bataan in the early days of the Pacific Theatre of War, circa 1941-1942.
War really is Hell, you know.Well, for the good part of the film, we have 13 fine actresses (14 if you include uncredited Anna Q.
Emphasis is on Margaret Sullavan, Marsha Hunt and Fay Bainter for the serious aspects, and on Ann Sothern and Joan Blondell for what Hollywood no doubt regarded as humorous and "romantic" relief.
The Japanese are going to win this one for the time being, and the nurses are headed for imprisonment.
Nurses In War. What a pleasure it is to see such an amazing cast of women put together in one film.
Today we are lucky to get more than 2 women in a film unless we get a comic book movie.
This cast has almost as diverse a cast of good women actresses as any movie I have seen.This is a stage play made into a movie about army nurses dealing with the Japanese invasion of Bataan.
Thank goodness it does not go to the conquest as I can not imagine a group of women and what would have happened to them if an invader got to plunder them.This film deals with the desperate and the more desperate situation as the invader gets closer and closer.There are a few men, most notably a dying sequence by an uncredited Robert Mitchum but for the most part the ladies coping with the war and with each other are the subject here.
Sometimes even their faces get grim and dirt.The reason this ensemble is only together for this one film is the war effort.
Directed by Richard Thorpe, with a screenplay by Paul Osborn that was based on the play by Allan Kenward, this nearly all female cast war drama tells the harrowing story of thirteen women on Bataan during World War II just prior to its being overrun by Japanese forces in 1942.Led by two veteran nurses, Lieutenant Mary Smith 'Smitty' (Margaret Sullavan) and Captain Alice Marsh (Fay Bainter), nine novice (e.g. only first aid expertise) volunteers receive on-the-job training (and quinine) to do the best they can to assist the officers with the continuous supply of American G.I. casualties on this precarious peninsula in the Philippine Islands.
References are made to General MacArthur, Corregidor, and President Truman's order to evacuate which supersedes MacArthur's to dig in.Though the film contains a few (unimpressive and requisite) action sequences, the story primarily takes place in the women's bunker, where they sleep and eat; there are a couple of scenes in the outer office of a never seen Lieutenant Thomas Holt (Addison Randall, uncredited does appear with field glasses covering his face near the very beginning), where a communications switchboard is operated by the women.
Most of the scenes involve the women talking about their lives, the war, and its effect on themselves, their emotions, and each other.Young Sue West talks about the simplicity of the situation (e.g. what's at stake): if they enemy wins, "we" die; she even says "if one of us dies, all of us will".
Helen, who initially expresses interest in Lieutenant Holt, is a calming influence and a voice of reason among the women while Grace, who laughingly tries to distract everybody's maudlin outlook by demonstrating her striptease act, says some things she shouldn't when her leg is wounded (an injury that magically disappears later).The film's main subplot is relational, and it involves Smitty and Pat. Captain Marsh appears only briefly in a few scenes, including one at the beginning which is confusing until the end and one near the film's conclusion when she (somehow) appears in the bunker just before the voice of the enemy is heard outside.
She's aware the Smitty is also interested in the Lieutenant, but doesn't see the seemingly all business, serious, and even homely nurse as much competition.But Smitty has two secrets: not only is she suffering from malignant malaria (her Captain had wanted to evacuate her to better doctors in Australia even before the volunteers had arrived) but, as a civilian nurse, she'd married Lieutenant Holt; she's able to keep both of these facts from the others until (late in the film) she has an attack and reveals them to Flo, who then relates them to Pat. The film's final scene, after the bunker had been vacated by the others, with their hands above their heads, under orders from an unseen yet English speaking Japanese invader, shows these two women coming to terms with (respect for) one another..
"Cry 'Havoc'" is one of quite a few films about women at the front lines in the Pacific theater during WWII.
What makes this a bit different is that most of the women are NOT nurses, but untrained volunteers who are pressed into service during the final days in the Philippines during the early part of 1942.
Ultimately, the audience knew that the women would not escape--as it was public knowledge of the fall of the islands.The film is fairly good but does suffer from a few characters who are more caricatures.
Most of the rest aren't as broadly written as her--and a few are even quite interesting, such as the sick nurse played by Margaret Sullavan.
It takes fully 1 hour and 22 minutes before any of these "nurses" helps a wounded GI, then the film ends soon after.
Sixty years later it stands out as the grittiest war movie ever."So Proudly We Hail" did the nurses --- and America --- proud.