THREE STRIPES IN THE SUN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 891, 31 August 1956, Page 15

THREE STRIPES IN THE SUN

(Columbia) N the simplest entertainment level, Three Stripes in the Sun is a romantic story of a Japanese girl and an American sergeant in the occupation forces in Japan. As such, with Aldo Ray as the sergeant, and the girl, Yuko, played by an unspoilt Japanese newcomer, Mitsuko Kimura, it’s a little better than most. But as you might expect of a film based on a New Yorker story -The Gentle Wolthound, by E. J. Kahn, Jr.-there’s more to it than mere romance, Sergeant O'Reilly hated the Japanese when he arrived in Japan, and even a dressing down by his commanding officer after a street brawl didn’t cure him of his hatred. It was when he falsely accused one of them of stealing his wallet (he turned out to be a priest) that he began to realise-in an encounter with an orphan who recalled his own childhood-that humanity is what we all have in common, In a not too profound way, in fact, the film has a look at the relations between

different nationals and peoples. With or without its "point," this is a not un-_ attractive piece, and a not unpromising start for its director, Richard Murphy. If we can look forward to other films in which other American colonels will say, "Does it ever occur to you that other people may like their own way of life?" well, that will be very nice, too. Three Stripes in the Sun, by the way, was mostly shot in Japan, and the story is substantially true.