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First Yank into Tokyo (1945)

Director: Gordon Douglas

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From Time Out Film Guide

A wartime potboiler in which a Japanese-speaking US pilot (Neal), his features orientalised by plastic surgery, is smuggled into Japan to retrieve vital data from a scientist (Cramer) captured while testing a component for the A-Bomb. Desperate plotting ensures that the commandant (Loo) of the PoW camp was once Neal's college room-mate, while a US nurse (Hale) playing Florence Nightingale to the prisoners is his long-lost sweetheart. Will either penetrate his inscrutable disguise when he worms his way in as a guard? The mission is accomplished with the aid of more plot contrivances, and Neal - his plastic surgery irreversible - elects to die while killing innumerable Japs rather than force his new features on his beloved. Skilful direction and camerawork (Harry Wild) just about keep things going. The A-Bomb theme and a gloating commentary ('Hiroshima destroyed! Nagasaki devastated!') were added when the war's abrupt end caught up with the film's release.

Author: TM 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

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Cast & crew

Director: Gordon Douglas

Producer: J Robert Bren

Cast: Tom Neal, Barbara Hale, Marc Cramer, Richard Loo, Keye Luke, Benson Fong, Leonard Strong full cast

Genre(s): War

Duration: 83 mins


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