Cry of Battle (1963)

Interesting facts

• Filmed in: Philippines

Cry of Battle is a 1963 American coming-of-age action war film based on the 1951 novel Fortress in the Rice by Benjamin Appel, who was a journalist and special assistant to the U.S. commissioner for the Philippines from 1945–46. The film stars Van Heflin, James MacArthur, Rita Moreno and Leopoldo Salcedo. Set during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, the working title was To Be a Man.

Production

Producer Joe Steinberg had a wealthy brother named Harry Stonehill in the Philippines who assisted with the financing of the film. He hired his friends Irving Lerner to direct and Bernard Gordon to write the screenplay. Gordon saw the opportunity to use the screenplay as a comment on American attitudes toward Third World people and attitudes about masculinity, explaining the film's working title of To Be a Man.

The film was shot in the Philippines. In early 1962, prior to filming, the visas were held up as the script was deemed offensive to Filipinos with Vice President Emmanuel Pelaez stating that the script "makes them the object of condescension and contempt" and was an "insult to the Filipino people".

Rita Moreno's scenes were shot around her travel to Hollywood to accept the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for West Side Story. A Filipino designed her dress for the awards ceremony, which Edith Head voted the most original of the night. The designer returned to the Philippines the next day.

Moreno's planned nude bathing scene in the film attracted a great deal of publicity. She eventually filmed the scene wearing a dress.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.