Pacific Rendezvous (1942)

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

What really weakens what could have been a good narrative is the attempt to insert light hearted comic elements into the plot of PACIFIC RENDEZVOUS. Instead of playing it as straight drama, what could have emerged as a timely romantic drama about breaking the Japanese code during WWII becomes a trivial piece of fluff with an absurd spotlight on the silly character played by Jean Rogers.She's the girlfriend of our hero (Lee Bowman) and does him no favors when it comes to helping the war effort crack the code. For sheer stupidity (and to make her character seem "cute" at all times), she slips dozens of sleeping pills in his coffee so he can get some rest from a heavy schedule of solving the code and ignoring her.And throughout the movie she pouts, bounces around and shows jealousy of any other female who pursues Bowman, as for example female spy Mona Maris. Her acting is dreadful enough to bring the story down to the level of irritating fluff where it remains until the final reel.An interesting cast headed by Lee Bowman, Russell Hicks, Mona Maris, Carl Esmond, Hans Conreid, Curt Bois and several other good players is defeated by a silly script which reduces the whole thing to a B-budget MGM programmer which played the lower half of double features in the '40s.

This is almost like two films--one literate and engaging, the other stupid and clichéd. It's really a shame all the problems weren't worked out with the writing, but considering how quickly most B-movies were written and produced, this isn't too unusual. It's a real shame, though, as this could have been a very good film.First the good. The movie is original and involves WWII code-breakers. This is pretty fascinating and I liked watching the leading man (Lee Bowman) go through his paces as a master code-breaker. In fact, the first two-thirds of the film was very good. But now for the bad, the film just went on way too long and lost steam at about 50 minutes. Additionally, Jean Rogers' role as the "kooky girlfriend" must rank as one of the worst-written and distracting roles in film history!! For every smart move made by Bowman, the idiot Rogers then stepped in to screw things up as some sort of misguided "comedy relief". If her role had been intelligently written, the overall film would have improved immensely! Instead, watching her, it's hard to understand how we actually won WWII!!

This MGM (5th Column) spy movie is made by the A team at MGM. It opens with a Japanese sub sinking an American ship. Then you see that the Nazis (not Japanese) have taken over a D.C. hotel from which they transmit messages including the position of the just sunken supply ship. The obvious fear that is revealed is that the axis (Germany and Japan) nations are working together. I have read that "Code breaking" by both the Germans and Japanese was common and was a great problem for the USA in WW2. Next we go to a ballroom in a hotel, probably the Park hotel. Lt. Gordon (Lee Bowman) meets his romantic interest Elaine (Jean Rogers). Jean Rogers appearance, later in the movie, is very appealing. Her female rival Olivia (Mona Maris) reminds one of a fetching Kay Francis. Although it was patriotic, romantic, intriguing and had two murders, the writers were brilliant as the plot was also cute and light. In 1942, this was (most likely) welcomed after a year of doubt beginning with Pearl Harbor, the Bataan death march and the defeat at Corregidor. Nothing encouraging was happening in Europe and the US troops in Africa had been less than heroic. Here we find a hero in navy Lt. Gordon who breaks the Nazi code which allows them to intercept the Nazi transmission. They discover they have but three days to discover who has stolen a US code book, recover it and prevent another major WW2 disaster. Does Lt. Gordon discover the bad guy 5th Columnists? Does he recover the Code Book and thereby prevent the death of a convoy of troops, a part of the 300,000 reinforcements? The 300,000 who will be needed in the Pacific to bring victory over Japan. In 1942 the USA had been awakened out of its sleep by Japan at Pearl Harbor (Dec.7, 1941) and was now dressing for WAR, for total victory and would insist on an unconditional surrender. Yes, it has a light romantic comedy woven into an otherwise very heavy, sad and despairing movie. This movie was "just what the doctor ordered" at this time of desperation and preparation. You will come away from this movie encouraged with a smile on your face. (Smile)

Ludicrous violations of the most basic security regs are only the beginning. It's hard to see how they achieved such abysmal trash on such a low budget. I turned it off once, then got curious to see if it could get any worse. It did.