Three Came Home
| Three Came Home | |
|---|---|
 Original poster |
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| Directed by | Jean Negulesco |
| Produced by | Nunnally Johnson |
| Written by | Nunnally Johnson (Agnes Newton Keith, autobiography) |
| Starring | Claudette Colbert Patric Knowles Florence Desmond Sessue Hayakawa |
| Music by | Hugo Friedhofer |
| Cinematography | William H. Daniels Milton R. Krasner |
| Editing by | Dorothy Spencer |
| Distributed by | Twentieth Century-Fox |
| Release date(s) | 20 February 1950 |
| Running time | 106 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Three Came Home (1950) is a post-war film made by Twentieth Century-Fox, based on the memoirs of the same name by writer Agnes Newton Keith. It depicts Keith's life in North Borneo in the period immediately before the Japanese invasion in 1942, and her subsequent internment and suffering, separated from her husband Harry, and with a young son to care for. Keith was initially interned at Berhala Island near Sandakan, North Borneo (today's Sabah) but spent most of her captivity at Batu Lintang camp at Kuching, Sarawak. The camp was liberated in September, 1945.
Adapted and produced by Nunnally Johnson, directed by Jean Negulesco, the film starred Claudette Colbert in the lead role. The New York Times reviewer said, "It will shock you, disturb you, tear your heart out. But it will fill you fully with a great respect for a heroic soul."
The film is now in the public domain and so is available to watch in its entirety online at no charge.[1][2][3][4][5]
A second unit filmed locations in Borneo for four weeks.[6]
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[edit] Plot outline
American-born Agnes Keith (Colbert) and her British husband (Patric Knowles) live a cushioned colonial life in North Borneo with their young son in 1942. After the Japanese invasion, they are interned and then taken to separate prison camps, one for men, the other for women and children. Amid the brutality of the internment camp, the camp commander Lieutenant-Colonel Suga (Sessue Hayakawa) is respectful to Mrs Keith because he is familiar with her work, and is shown to be kind to the children even when his own family has died in Hiroshima.
[edit] Cast
- Claudette Colbert ... Agnes Newton Keith
- Patric Knowles ... Harry Keith
- Florence Desmond ... Betty Sommers
- Sessue Hayakawa ... Colonel Suga
- Sylvia Andrew ... Henrietta
- Mark Keuning ... George Keith
- Phyllis Morris ... Sister Rose
- Howard Chuman ... Lieutenant Nekata
- Douglas Walton ... Australian POW
[edit] Critical reception
In August 1976, Leslie Halliwell described the film as "[w]ell-made, harrowing", assigning it ** (2 stars out of 4), a rarely-granted high rating.[7]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.archive.org/details/ThreeCameHomeClaudetteColbertHankrip
- ^ http://www.profilms.com/publicdomain/index.htm
- ^ http://www.desertislandfilms.com/titles.html
- ^ http://www.buyoutfootage.com/pages/titles/blacktype/pd_featurefilms/pd_films_t.html
- ^ http://www.panamvideo.com/pg2.html
- ^ http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title.jsp?stid=93059&category=Notes
- ^ Leslie Halliwell. Halliwell's Film Guide to 8,000 English Language Films, Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, 1977; Granada, 1979.
- Halliwell's Film Guide, 11th ed, 1995.
[edit] External links
- Three Came Home at the Internet Movie Database
- Three Came Home is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
- Three Came Home at AllRovi
- Variety review (extract from Variety's contemporary review of the film)
- Time Contemporary review of the book
- Agnes Newton Keith (1946, Reprint 2008) Three Came Home
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- American films
- English-language films
- 1950 films
- 20th Century Fox films
- American war drama films
- Black-and-white films
- 1950s drama films
- Films based on biographies
- Films directed by Jean Negulesco
- Sandakan
- Pacific War films
- World War II prisoner of war films
- World War II films based on actual events
- Women in prison films
