Operation Hernia
1951's "Go For Broke" has Much to Teach Us About Racism in 2024
On Friday, I had an operation. The robotic procedure for an inguinal hernia was, I’m told, relatively simple and routine. I assume that it went well; I’m sore as heck, but I was able to walk a mile on Saturday, and today, Monday, I paced two miles through the neighborhood without much discomfort.
Still, I’m dog tired, so the rest of the past few days was spent sleeping as much as possible. What that means is that I’d read about two pages of the book I’m working on and then, put it aside and drift off for an hour or two. I’ve also gotten in a few movies, and when I’m sick, that means war movies, and generally, that means submarine pictures.
I picked out a few I haven’t seen in some years: “Destination Tokyo” (1943), “Operation Pacific” (1951), and “Torpedo Run” (1958). To round out the selection with a little variety, I picked “Go For Broke” (1951), a movie about the US 442nd Regimental Combat Team in Italy, which was made up entirely of Nisei Japanese-American volunteers as today’s picture.
There’s something about submarine movies that has a calming effect. Essentially, they are all very similar and reassuring, for the most part. The crew of the submarine generally comes through their odyssey, perhaps not fully intact, but they do prevail in the end. There are exceptions, notably 1981’s harrowing West German masterpiece “Das Boot”.
The three sub movies I chose are fairly simple in narrative arc, they feature characters that are only thinly established, but they are played by some of Hollywood’s best character actors, and so they are familiar and beloved before they have much to say or do. In line with this kind of ‘shorthand’ in casting, nicely economical filmmaking is the order of the day. Exposition is fleetingly revealed in short takes, flashbacks, and radio intercepts as each sub makes its voyage across the Pacific to its hunting grounds near Japan. But each film is slightly different in its intent and style, based on the time in which it was filmed.
My final film, “Go For Broke” isn’t a submarine movie. Made by Dore Schary’s MGM, it’s a small, intimate movie as war pictures go. Instead of focusing on the war against Japan, it centers on a small squad of Japanese-Americans, played by Henry Nakamura, Lane Nakano, Ken Okamoto, Harry Hamada, George Miki, Henry Oyasato, and Akira Fukunaga, who have all volunteered for combat duty with the US Army. The point is made early on by one of the recruits that his family is back home, under guard in an internment camp in the US. We are reminded throughout the film that these soldiers are willingly risking death, fighting for a country that has unlawfully imprisoned them and their families because of their race. It’s truly sobering. There’s nothing in their service for these men but personal honor and love of a country that doesn’t love them back.
When a new Second Lieutenant, played by Van Johnson, is assigned to lead a platoon in the regiment, his “all-American” stature as a white matinee idol is used to full effect. Johnson complains to his new commanding officer that it’s ironic that he signed up to fight Japs, but now, he’s forced to fight with them. “They’re not Japs,” his Captain angrily brings him up short. “They’re Nisei, second-generation Japanese-Americans.” When the Captain reminds him that they’re just like Italian-Americans or German-Americans, the Lieutenant disagrees on the basis of the shape of their eyes. Johnson’s character looks like the boy next door, and he’s a racist, and that’s the point of the picture.
The Nisei soldiers are realistically and unsentimentally portrayed and treated with dignity and respect by the film’s writer/director Robert Pirosh. Combat is depicted without music accompaniment, and treated matter-of-factly, without heroics, rare for any war movie, but it makes its point in this film in particular. There’s nothing glamorous about what these men are doing, and when they die in combat sequences, they simply and suddenly die. Their comrades haven’t got time to mourn; they have to keep moving forward.
Four of the Japanese-American actors in “Go For Broke” were actually veterans of the 442nd Regimental Combat team, which makes the movie all the more remarkable as a chronicle of who these young men were. Throughout their campaigns in Italy and France, they were clearly willing to put everything on the line to fight for the US; the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the all-Nisei 100th Infantry Battalion were folded together and became the most highly decorated US Army unit of WWII, earning eight Presidential unit citations, and returning the highest casualty rates of any regiment in the US Army during the Second World War.
Anti-Asian racism seems a surprising topic for a movie made in 1951, until you remember that the late forties and early fifties was a time when American film studios were looking at firmly entrenched racism of the US and going after it with movies that had a message and some teeth. 1947’s “Gentleman’s Agreement” and the excellent “Crossfire” shone a light on antisemitism, while 1949’s “Home of the Brave” and “Lost Boundaries” were examinations of anti-Black racism. Though they may seem tame by today’s standards, within the context of the time, they carried weight and had some power.
Despite being a more than seventy-year-old film, “Go For Broke” is also potent. It’s a reminder of how far we’ve come, and how much further we have yet to travel. At a point about two thirds of the way through, Van Johnson’s character is confronted by an official army communique that states that the racism with which his soldiers have had to contend is a disease that is antithetical to the American way of life and undermines American democracy. It’s a surprising statement, practically an admission of guilt from an army that featured plenty of segregated units, an acknowledgement of America’s failings and a step in the right direction. It’s a message that prompts Johnson’s character to literally fight a racist buddy of his from his old Texas unit on behalf of his men.
It wasn’t my intention to spend my convalescence ruminating on our racist DNA, but good movies resonate; their messages come through, whether we’re ready for them or not. At this point, I doubt I have any readers who are Trump supporters, but I am sure I have dozens of Van Johnsons, basically good people like me who could and must do better.
Like Johnson’s character, we are all racists. We all view each other to some degree through the lens of race. That’s always going to be there for most of us, no matter what our intentions or desires. But it’s in the recognition that we have a deep problem, and the resolve to do something to correct it, whether through allyship, active support, or full-on anti-racist action, that we have the opportunity to make a difference and to confront and take on America’s original sin. If you are still undecided about the election in two weeks, voting against racism will be a small but extremely positive first step.
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As always, outstanding...