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So much average

Simply A Masterpiece

Good concept, poorly executed.

As Good As It Gets

The small foreign community of Sandakan, is jolted as the Japanese invade the island of Borneo. Their somewhat sedated existence is going to take a dramatic turn. At the center of the story is Agnes Newton Keith, an American woman married to Harry Keith, an English gentleman. Their cozy life will take a turn to the worst when all the foreigners are taken into custody and sent into segregated labor camps.The narrative emphasizes the hardship in the ladies' camp. The men are in a nearby area. Agnes, a writer, impresses Colonel Suga, who is in charge. Before the war, the Japanese officer had attended the university at Washington State, while Agnes had been at Berkeley. He had read the book she wrote. Meeting the author is a highlight for him, although being on the opposite side, his hands are tied. No favors should be expected from this soldier, who happens to be a decent man.The life in the camps is horrible. All the women must do with the terrible conditions they have to face. Most of the inmates came from comfortable backgrounds, never having been in this position. The uncertainty of what the future will bring weighs heavily upon everyone. Agnes suffers the indignity of almost being raped by a soldier. She feels it is her duty to report it to Suga, who is receptive and wants to deal with whoever attempted to harm Agnes. Unfortunately, the man below Suga sees it another way. He wants to have Agnes sign a complaint that will surely be her death sentence.Jean Negulesco, directed. Nunnalyy Johnson, one of the best screen writers of all times, adapted the autobiographical book by Agnes Newton Keith. We are told the shooting took place in Sandakan, but at times we get the impression the film was shot in a Hollywood sound stage, but of course, it is only a feeling. The movie reflect the times in which it went into production; it has that glossy treatment that does not make a realistic sense. Not, for that matter, Agnes, and the rest of the women look like the pathetic women they are supposed to be, but the movie going picture was probably not prepared to accept to see them in rags.Claudette Colbert is Agnes. As was her trademark, she is seen from her left side only, throughout the film. She was an appealing actress who gave a good performance, all the time. Patric Knowles plays her husband Harry. The great Sessue Hayakawa appears as the kindly Suga with some moving moments.The film, while not showing anything new, keeps the viewer involved in the drama of these poor people trapped against their will.

Claudette Colbert plays British-American civilian POW Agnes Keith in this true story about a mother's experience in a Japanese POW camp in the South Pacific during world war two. Mrs Keith and her young son experience one trial after another as they struggle to survive with their humanity, hope, and dignity intact for over two years under their captors. Colbert is phenomenal and is given strong support by the excellent Sessue Hayakawa (Bridge on the River Kwai) as the Colonel assigned to overseeing the camp.The film presents its subject matter in a surprisingly non-propagandistic manner, and does not demonize the Japanese as thoroughly as many war-era films. In fact, Three Came Home offers some hope for future friendship and alliance between the former combatants.Director Jean Negulesco enjoyed a 55 year career in and out of Hollywood and is probably best known for Three Coins in a Fountain and Johnny Belinda. Three Came Home was made around the height of his popularity in 1950. His long and successful career would continue for another 37 years. While Three Came Home is not his best film, it is as well made as it could have been, and very much worth watching for those interested in the subject matter.

Three Came Home is a unique and distinguished motion picture, unique in its intelligent, understated direction by the Rumanian Jean Negulesco, distinguished by the stunning performances of Claudette Colbert and Sessue Hayakawa. Negulesco, who is perhaps best known among film fans for the fifties' crowd-pleasers How to Marry a Millionaire and Three Coins in the Fountain and his masterpiece, Jane Wyman's 1948 Oscar-winner Johnny Belinda, was a director whose style was influenced by the general mies-en-scene, or overall "look" of the studios he worked for. These were Warner Brothers and Twentieth-Century-Fox, respectively. In a Jean Negulesco film one doesn't usually pick out extraordinary camera shots, because the emphasis is on character and atmosphere and how the characters are often so affected by their environment as to be very nearly engulfed by it. This was literally the case with the Joan Crawford character in Negulesco's unforgettable Humoresque. In Three Came Home he adopted the spareness of the Fox lot's production values- no gloss- to invoke the harshness and deprivation of a Japanese internment camp for women during World War II. Negulesco's pacing and emotional truth make every scene decidedly devoid of melodrama. I liked the scene of the character played by Colbert (on whose memoir the film is based) searching in the night darkness for her quarters before being caught by the prison camp guards. Absolutely harrowing and poignant at the same time, and the scene's wrap-up is emotionally and overpoweringly satisfying. As is the entire picture. Claudette Colbert (like her contemporaries Greer Garson, Deborah Kerr, Dorothy McGuire, Jean Simmons) was a great female star who evoked her own natural warmth and friendliness through her roles. Primarily remembered for her charming comedic performances (It Happened One Night, Midnight, The Egg and I chief among them) she grew into a dramatic actress of power far and above sincerity and star magnetism. Never was she more real and on-the-mark than in her portrayal of Agnes Keith in Three Came Home. Her scenes with Sessue Hayakawa (superb as a powerless, conscience-stricken Japanese commander) are wonderful, as are the scenes with (precious) Mark Keuning as her little son and the finale. Three Came Home was a brave film to make for its time due to its balanced perspective of two cultures represented by two main characters, showing the inhumane and human sides of war. It failed at the box office though critically acclaimed. It should be seen and appreciated as a film testament to a time in history, a delineation of the impact of tyranny and intolerance that can still be felt in today's world.

Agnes Newton Keith's memoir about prisoners-of-war during WWII becomes emotional, if somewhat overly-familiar saga starring Claudette Colbert as a female writer who, along with her young son, is taken from Borneo into a prison camp run by the Japanese in 1942. Director Jean Negulesco always worked exceptionally well with actresses, and Colbert excels here in a meaty role. The horrors and insanity of the war are vividly-captured, though the Japanese seem to be a formidable, yet one-dimensional nemeses (to the point that one wonders why it took so long to overtake them and win out this story). There are much better POW dramas from this era, however "Three Came Home" is a fairly good one, with gripping and heartfelt passages. **1/2 from ****