When the Filipino actors speak in their native tongue it is Tagalog but people around Lingayen Gulf speak Pangasinan, a different dialect.
A trio of American soldiers sneak into the Japanese-held Philippines to scout it out for the forthcoming invasion. However, once they meet up with the local partisans, they come to realize that the war these locals have been waging isn't a 'nice' war but a war without rules and a war without pity.
This low budget, black and white film which was made on a shoe string budget is surprisingly good. Realistic with little Hollywood heroics and fairly well acted.
The war programmers of the 1950's and 1960's were mostly majorly flawed due to lack of motivation and character development, utilizing cliched characters, stock footage and stories that lacked impact. This one sets up conflict and motive from the very start, showing soldier Jimmie Rogers in the Philippines in 1944 trying to get out of the jungle to get to a beach where the Japanese have set up camp.
World War II has probably been the most focused-on topic in cinema. Practically every genre has depicted the six-year global conflict.
Hollywood has frequently (and variably) dealt with the WWII Pacific conflict: this is another such film, for which 'indie' director Hellman managed to secure the backing of a major studio, Twentieth-Century Fox (though the end result being just 69 minutes long, it was clearly sold as a 'programmer'). Anyway, Hellman's talent for introspection is even more evident (in an otherwise slightly-plotted effort) than before, with the emphasis on characterization (pertaining especially to the initial-distrust-which-develops-into-mutual-respect between the different races involved)...
If it weren't for the presence of Jack Nicholson in the cast of Back Door To Hell I doubt this film would be remembered at all. Watching it today you can see the beginnings of the legendary cynical persona that Jack Nicholson was hewing for his later image that we know so well.
This was one of a number of economy-sized war movies filmed in the Philippines in the early 60's recreating the war in the Pacific twenty years earlier with the help of authentic locations and generous helpings of wartime stock footage. You've seen it all before, but in the hands of a young Monte Hellman and cameraman Mars Rasca it looks remarkably good, has an anachronistic but atmospheric jazz score by Mike Velarde - and of course it has Jack Nicholson, who plays the unit member who speaks Japanese, in which we hear him at one point questioning a captured Japanese soldier.
****SPOILERS**** Tragic & gripping war drama involving three American GI's sent to scout out Japanese troops & gun positions on the Philippine island of Luzon to make way for a major invasion by the US military. Needing help from the local gorilla units the men run into difficulty with gorilla leader Paco, Conrad Maca, who doesn't trust them since both his wife and son was killed not by the Japanese but a US air strike on his village.
One time pop singing star Jimmy Rodgers is teamed with a VERY young Jack Nicholson, in this tale of three Intel-recon rangers, landing in the Phillipines, just prior to McArthur's return. This is an early directorial effort by Monte Hellman, and combined with the young cast, and several Phillipino actors there is a sense of awkwardness to the film that actually lends to its authenticity.
