RELEASED IN 1966 and directed by Ron Winston, "Ambush Bay" stars Hugh O'Brian, James Mitchum and Mickey Rooney as Marines on a covert mission on a Japanese-held island in the Philippines where they must hook up with local Filipino guerrillas in preparation for MacArthur's invasion.The first 45 minutes or so are typical jungle warfare from the perspective of 60's filmmakers, not bad, but kinda meh. However, things perk up with the Teahouse sequence and the introduction of Miyazaki, played by the beautiful Tisa Chang, which adds human interest to the proceedings with O'Brian effective as the laconic hero. There are some war movie clichés, but the action's muscular and the movie emphasizes self-sacrifice for the greater cause with some fairly potent melancholic pieces.Another reviewer puzzlingly criticized the film as a cheap remake of "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957) when the storyline isn't anything like that heralded film. They both take place in the jungle and involve Allies fighting Japanese, that's it. The score has similarities, so what?THE MOVIE RUNS 109 minutes and was shot in Luzon & Metro Manila, Philippines. WRITERS: Marve Feinberg & Ib Melchior.GRADE: B-

A squad of Marines arrives at the Philippines, in October 1944. Their mission is top secret; but, if you have some background knowledge, you'll know it has to do with United States General Douglas MacArthur's impending return. The film's Captain is quickly killed off, and handsome "second in command" Sergeant Hugh O'Brian (as Steve Corey) takes over. A distant, no-nonsense hero, Mr. O'Brian was self-described gigolo (servicing a forty-year-old divorcée) as the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He clashes with ill-advisedly red-capped Private James Mitchum (as James Grenier), who has no combat experience. Mr. Mitchum, who also narrates the story, is needed for his radio transmission expertise.The main conflict is between O'Brian and Mitchum; the film's message about war and heroism is haphazardly told. The film's most obvious fault is that nothing much is done to make any of it seem like it takes place in 1944. The Marines look and act like they could be fighting in Vietnam; this may, or may not be part of the point; it isn't clear. Perhaps, it was felt an authentic filming location (Philippines) would be enough. A nice opening introduces the cast, then neglects most of them. Veteran Mickey Rooney (as Ernest Wartell) and beautiful Tisa Chang (as Miyazaki) play the only noteworthy supporting characters.**** Ambush Bay (6/13/66) Ron Winston ~ Hugh O'Brian, James Mitchum, Mickey Rooney, Tisa Chang

Just picked up this DVD for a song. Yes, the acting is wooden, the characters are archetypes of classic WWII yarns, and the blood was obviously red paint. But this film does include two nice touches: the cinematography, and the music score. I thought I recognized the music: Richard LaSalle was the composer for "Ambush Bay" and many of his music cues from this film turned up as incidental music on most of producer Irwin Allen's TV projects throughout the 1970's. The "Land of the Giants" series used a lot of his music in the later episodes.Oddly, in a peculiar coincidence, "Ambush Bay" co-script writer Ib Melchoir was a noted sci-fi film scribe, having penned "The Time Travelers" (1966), and is credited with creating the idea for producer Irwin Allen's "Lost In Space" (for which he was not given credit). And the tie-in is that composer LaSalle contributed scores to both "Time Travelers" and "Lost in Space" (sometimes fact IS stranger than fiction).

Excellent majestic, dramatic location filming in the Philippines is wasted on 'Ambush Bay's' cliché crippled script and on its other, ginsu production values (e.g., very fake-looking fake blood, amateurish explosions, racks upon racks of 1966-modern electronics suites pretending to be WWII Japanese gear, shabbily unsynched post-production dubbing of spoken Japanese over the moving lips of the Filipino actors portraying them). It also doesn't help this film that most of the raiders - those who are given no character development beyond the opening scene's terse narration of each man's combat specialty; and the most laughable of these is for Mickey Rooney's character who is "expert" with a Thompson submachine gun). The DVD image and sound transfer are, however, surprisingly good.Since I first saw 'Ambush Bay' on late-night TV (in the Age Before Cable), and many times thereafter, I've always loved the cheesy scene of the wounded Mickey Rooney sassing his Japanese interrogators before he grenades them along with himself. It's one of the cheesiest bravado scenes ever to have been captured in celluloid - and yet it's the chief reasons I watch this almost painfully cheesy movie every few years or so. That scene, indeed the entire film, is like a 1960's censors'-toned-down-for-macho-blue-language echo of men's pulp magazines, which usually bore full-color cover illustrations that depicted bosomy Nazi women whipping bare chested virile Yanks, or inscrutable sloe-eyed Japanese women bent on seducing square-jawed, and always Caucasian, G.I.s) of the 50's and 60's (see James Lileks's website for amusing samplings thereof). I might add that a man of Rooney's abbreviated stature may not have met the marines' minimum pre-WWII height requirement, which thus casts doubt on the script's revelation that his character is a "career" marine: all I know is that I've NEVER seen a Gunnery Sergeant so short as Rooney's - so diminutive is Rooney that the Thompson gun he brandishes nearly equals his gnomish height. Yet he gives a good effort despite the script's wince-provoking haplessness.Though the marines in the film speak the most lines, it's the Filipino actors (the ones playing Filipinos, not the ones badly playing Japanese) who achieve something like verisimilitude. Plainly, some of those actors, and many of the Filipino extras, retained vivid memories of their pitiless WWII subjugation and occupation by the Japanese.The storyline isn't worth recounting at all, except to say that it's nearly as improbable as that of 'The Guns Of Navarone' - but at least 'The Guns Of Navarone' profited from its nearly high-camp capacity to, again nearly, lampoon itself as it plays out. But 'Ambush Bay' neither has, nor attempts, any such wittiness, overt or underlying, and thus its worst, thoroughgoing flaw is that it takes itself much too seriously. The other inherent flaw is in the plot: the notion that a fixed minefield could have somehow defeated or deflected the massive 1944 U.S. invasion of the Philippines is beyond risible.At least the prop crew got all the personal weapons on both sides, and those "beach camouflage" (that's what the pattern was officially called) gyrene uniforms, right. We even see some Japanese troops toting and firing U.S. M1903 Springfield rifles: which is factual since the Japanese captured large numbers of these when they took the Philippine archipelago in 1942, along with considerable stocks of the proper ammunition for them.Hugh O'Brian - never a contender for acting awards - is stiff, stolid, and wooden almost to point of petrification, and it doesn't help his performance that he was given awful dialogue to try to speak convincingly; in a few instance in 'Ambush Bay,' though, it seems he would have been a perfect casting choice had Hollywood decided to adapt DC Comics' nigh-superhero Sergeant Rock character to the cinema. James Mitchum inherited precious little of his father's superb talent: here as Grenier he's just gawky, awkward, sorely unconvincing every time he recites a line; his only - and scant - saving grace here would seem to be appears to have been a natural, relaxed athleticism.On the whole, however, viewers knowledgeable about WWII history will find 'Ambush Bay' historically lacking; and anyone familiar with the canons of scriptwriting and production technique will find its flimsy plot, hackneyed dialogue, and ginsu special effects almost unendurable. But watch it for the Classic Cheesiness in that one Mickey Rooney suicidal bravado scene, for the lovely location photography, and for some serious and fairly impressive acting by the Filipino actors whose performances, one can't help construing, benefited from their having had their hearts in this story that purports to tell, at least obliquely, of the ordeal they endured and the feats of sacrifice and fortitude they achieved throughout Japan's WWII tyrannization of them and their islands.