Monday, October 20, 2014

THE SIXTIES # 311: JEFFREY HUNTER, MARSHALL THOMPSON, RONALD REMY AND BARBARA PEREZ IN "NO MAN IS AN ISLAND" (1962)/ Reposted



Jeffrey Hunter stars in this incredible true story of a lone Navy serviceman and radioman, George Tweed, fighting for his survival on Japanese-occupied Guam during World War II. As Pearl Harbor is attacked, Tweed finds himself trapped on the island of Guam. All other military personnel have either been killed or have surrendered to the invading Japanese forces. Eluding capture, he alone must now find a way to evade the forces that hunt him down relentlessly. With the help of some sympathetic natives, he successfully hid from the Japanese invaders for 34 months, until the US Navy returns.
-->Barbara Perez, the Philippines’ brightest star then, was the perfect choice for the role of ‘Joe,’ a young Guamanian farm girl who befriended the lonely cave-dwelling Hunter. The movie was entirely shot in the Philippines.




She was offered several juicy and lucrative contracts, among them a three-year contract with Universal International and a starring role in a MGM movie, but she declined it and instead chose a simple family life. He was already married to actor Robert Arevalo.

On how Barbara landed that important role in “No Man is an Island,” you can read the whole story here.

2 comments:

  1. From: You Tube:
    Interesting how they utilized Philippine actors and actresses to play Chamorro people on Guam. What throws off the movie is that these actors sound filipino and are speaking filipino in the movie. Guam was a US territory by the time this movie was made. It would have been better had they study a little on the language aspect of Chamorro's. As a Chamorro myself, I find it very upsetting when they use the filipino language as the language of Guam in this movie.

    royacfalle

    ReplyDelete
  2. royacfalle:

    I don't blame you for reacting the way you did. But, in those days, Hollywood didn't really care so much about ethnicity. Just because it is in the Pacific ocean, they just generalize them as the same people.

    It was also a matter of logistics. The Philippines is one of the oldest nations in the world with film industry, way back when films were silent. They have all the technicians and beautiful actresses and handsome actors to grace Hollywood films, so they took advantage of that.

    Also, the languages of Filipinos and Chamorros are both Malayo-Polynesian (Austronesian) in origin, and many similarities are evident.

    But I hear you, man. It's indeed annoying.

    Even the Indonesians were annoyed as well, because every time they are pictured in Hollywood movies, it is always the Filipinos who act the part, and even speak Tagalog language, as if the Indonesians were also Tagalog speakers.

    But, even the Filipinos can't do anything about this. Our country used to be part of the USA from 1898-1946, which made all the Filpinos American Citizens – against their will.

    So, let's blame Hollywood for doing this, not the beautiful Filipino people.

    ReplyDelete