Cheap Hell to Eternity (Video) (Phil Karlson) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Hell to Eternity

I too would like to clear a couple of things up...
This movie is about an American in the Pacific War. This American has a special history or relationship with the Japanese, and his adoption by a good Japanese-American family, the effect of Pearl Harbor on himself and that family, and his experience of the Japanese he has both lived-with and had to fight against on Saipan Island battle are what make this above-average Pacific-war saga based on US Marine Guy Gabaldons personal story and war experience a little different from the run of the mill genre. Good supporting-cast with David Jansen, his gambling and broads loving buddy whose luck runs out finally on Saipan, sadly.
This man Guy Gabaldon would proudly agree with my description of him as an American, Im pretty-confidant.This movie is about Americans and Japanese,
its not about Germans, or Polish people,
or Swedes, or Russians,
or Italians,
or British or Irish or even, would you believe,and this may be more than you can handle, but its not about wonderful Spanish or Mexican people, or modern race-politics in the US and trivial PC touchiness, its about an American Marine and the Japanese.
I tell you this as a non-American myself, if I can see it, so should practically anybody else.

---

Set the record straight
I would like to point two things out.

In "Hell to Eternity" although Jeffery Hunter's character should have been depicted as a Mexican-American and should have been portrayed by one (Anthony Quinn comes to mind), the truth is, his character was depicted as a Italian-American portrayed by a classically white Western European (Jeffery Hunter).

In the years prior to "Hell to Eternity" being made, in California, the home of Hollywood, the agricultural industry expereinced a work shortage and recruited illegal immigrants to pick up the slack. Later during the time "Hell to Eternity" was made they became a burden to deal with and President Eisenhower ordered them rounded up in "Operation Wetback" and sent them back to Mexico. Additionally, during the making of "Hell to Eternity" the rise of the United Farm Workers took place and even though the UFW was a positive force for change for the Mexican-American community, others (bigots and racist) saw the union as an infernal trouble maker. Hence, it was unfashionable and politically incorrect for Hollywood to depict or portray either Mexican or Mexican-Americans as heroic figures let alone the subject of a major motion picture. Consequently, circumstances being what they were (prejudice, bigotry and selective memory and history), artistic license was used as an excuse to deviate from the actual true story. The result was an untrue and inaccurate depiction in a movie that was supposed to be about a true Mexican-American hero, Guy Gabaldon, a hero that the Mexican-American community has been deprived of celebrating for many decades now.

My second point is that, with the recent popularity of war movies these days, since 1960 when this movie was made, there never has been an attempt to right this wrong and depict and portray the true story of Guy Gabaldon, the true Mexican-American hero of this movie. Hollywood continues to focus exclusively on white heros of our wars in their movies to the detriment of our country's diverse history.

The movie should be remade with a Mexican-American playing the role of Guy Gabaldon (Esia Morales comes to mind) and should be more accurately told rather than sensationally and selectively told.

---

Hell To Eternity: Hatred Is A Three-Edged Sword
Most movies about the Second World War either deal with brave men performing heroically as expected or less heroic men doing the unexpected. In HELL TO ETERNITY the focus is on a man who is neither brave nor cowardly. He is no Henry Fleming dreaming of great exploits. Rather he is a man driven by hate for the same people whom earlier he had once called his own. He is Guy Gabaldon, a real life U. S. Marine who won several decorations for valor fighting the Japanese on Saipan.
The movie begins with Gabaldon as a boy living in a troubled street in Los Angeles. He is homeless, friendless, and more than a little filled with rage at a world that has no place for a poor boy of mixed Hispanic origin. A Japanese family sees worth in him, and much as Don Corleone did with Tom Hagen in THE GODFATHER, agree to take him in and raise him as one of their own. The adult Gabaldon is played by Jeffrey Hunter, who has the uneviable task of playing Gabaldon at varying times in a psychologically varying condition. Gabaldon learns to speak fluent Japanese and his face beams with delight as he addresses his adopted matriarch as 'Mama-san.' Life in the United States is indeed sweet, at least until Pearl Harbor, when he is swept up into the maelstrom of war. He does not relish the thought of fighting his adopted people, and he suffers greatly from the image of shooting at Japanese soldiers. During his initial introduction to training, he is befriended by a pre-Fugitive David Janssen, who shows him the ropes of being a soldier. Gabaldon learns to count on Janssen as a soldier, a friend, savior. During a vicious battle, Gabaldon sees Janssen gunned down right in front of him, and at that point, his world view is turned upside down. He now hates the Japanese with a ferocity that amazes even his friends. He uses his fluency in Japanese to lure them out of their lairs, and he guns them down by the hundreds. His hate drives him on until he meets a Japanese officer played by the immensely dignified Sessue Hayakawa, whose personal bravery restores Gabaldon's emotional equilibrium.
HELL TO ETERNITY is the rare war movie whose focus on killing is not to showcase either the fighting skills of the individual soldier or to build a national sense of patriotism and warlike fervor. Instead, director Phil Karlson uses the confusing images of war to mirror the equally confusing turmoil of one man who is called on to shift mental gears once too often.