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metz44
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THE GAZEBO is correct. My next clue was going to involve Debbie Reynolds' purchase of the gazebo, which would have been difficult to describe without using the word "gazebo." Thanks to Eve for sparing me from that ordeal. Good job. The thread is yours . . .

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Good guess?but it?s not Hitchcock?

 

?though the hero is something of an innocent suspected of deeds he didn?t do and is caught up in events larger than himself. It?s a later film than *Saboteur* and *The 39 Steps* and stars a couple of Oscar winners and is directed by an Oscar winner (plus another Oscar winner in a supporting role).

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Thanks, phroso. I stumbled onto Waugh's work in my early 20s, and I think I've read everything he ever published. It seems his work doesn't film well for American audiences, but this "freewheeling" approach makes *The Loved One* one of the most nearly successful efforts. And you can always get my attention with Robert Morley (the uncle).

 

Next up:

Early 60s film, B&W, WWII setting, fact based. A story worth telling, worth spreading, but, in this version, Hollywood trumps history somewhat.

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Marine recruits go through their training, graduate, and board up for transport to the Pacific Theater of War. On a stopover In Hawaii, some friends go on a liberty, hook up with some girls, wind up in their apartment. One of the girls turns out to be a stripper; the Marines and the audience get a show.

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The events recorded above get the action to about 1/3 of the movie's run. Other events, before America's entry into the war, focus on the hero. Per Hollywood, he was a street kid in California who was taken in and cared for by a Japanese-American family. Per History, he moved out of his family's home at age 13, and moved in with the Japanese-descended family. // He learned their language, and absorbed a lot of their culture. // After Pearl Harbor, his adaptive family were put in a separation camp, along with many other Japanese-Americans, on the theory that it would be easy for Japanese spies to hide among them. // Per Hollywood, the hero was reluctant and resentful when a Draft notice arrived for him. Per History, the lad went to Alaska and worked in a cannery until his 17th birthday, and then enlisted on that date. _Then_ the training and the wild liberty in Hawaii.

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Eve, imagine my surprise that you were the one who tracked this down once you got that much information. It was the current HBO series *The Pacific* that made me think of this 1960 movie. That series stresses the deadly business of clearing some of those islands of fanatical Japanese soldiers who refused to surrender in spite of overwhelming odds. That contrasted with the Saipan experience, where PFC Guy Gabaldon eventually pursuaded some 15,000 Japanese soldiers and civilians to surrender, saving many lives on both sides.

 

The History Vs Hollywood aspect continues with the casting of Gringo hunk Jeffrey Hunter as the Hespanic kid Guy Gabaldon, who accomplished this because he had mastered the language and the empathy to communicate so well with the enemy forces. Anyone intrested in the facts can find a pretty complete rundown in Wikipedia more than in the movie commentaries. Gabaldon was decorated for his accomplishments, of course, but there are still those who are miffed because he did not also get the Congressional Medal Of Honor,

 

Eve's thread.

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