The Clay Pigeon
The Clay Pigeon is a 1949 American film noir directed by Richard Fleischer and written by Carl Foreman, based on a true story. The drama features Bill Williams and Barbara Hale, real-life husband and wife. Plot. Jim Fletcher (Williams), a former inmate in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, awakes from a coma at a naval hospital, only to be told he's been accused of murder. Fletcher is not quite certain of his guilt so he escapes from the hospital in search of his best friend, another ex-POW Depiction of Japanese Americans. Although the  movie shows Jim's Japanese captors as extremely sadistic and inhumane, it also casts the much-maligned Japanese Americans in a positive light. As the Japanese American Mrs. Minoto helps Jim escape his persuers, he regards a photograph of her deceased husband, Sergeant John Mioto, member of the 442nd Infantry Division of the U.S. Army. It is accompanied by the certificate for his Distinguished Service Cross, won for "Extraordinary Heroism". Film noir specialist Eddie Muller speculates this is the first time the highly decorated 442nd Division, composed mostly of Japanese Americans, was acknowledged in a movie, and states that this  was not simply the studio's formulaic trope of balancing something negative with a positive, but rather screenwriter Carl Foreman's personal progressive outlook. Reception. Critical response. "Time Out" film reviews wrote of the film, "Directed by Fleischer with tight, spare energy, although the implausible script and bland leading performances (with Hale as the dead friend's wife, initially hostile but soon losing her heart) make it much inferior to "The Narrow Margin"."