Am I Missing Something?

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

The uprising is or was real. The doctor played by Cooper, was a real person forced to take over a military barracks because he was the highest ranking officer left after a Muslim Suicide attack as I recall.. The movie is a diagram of how to treat Muslim terrorists and should be watched by those in today's world who want to stop terror. Cooper uses their religion in order to fight them. Watch the movie for how this works. The characters are developed well, and while the story might seem like a rehash of another movie, it is a fairly representative movie of a real life hero. Not Gary Coopers finest work, but is a good movie and will give insight into Muslim Fundamentalist mindset.

I saw this film for the first time today and it definitely beat my expectations. Gary Cooper played an unforgettable role as the brave, yet insubordinate Doc Canavan, a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army working at a medical clinic in a small, mostly Catholic Filipino town in Mindanao ( presumably on the island of Basilan ) which was under constant attack from the ( presumably ) Tausug Moro rebels from the Sulu Archipelago ( which actually did take place for over 300 years in the region ). As a speaker of Tagalog, it was fun to hear the dialog between the Filipino actors and actresses in the film, and I was entertained by the fact that they had so much of it.Although the film is entirely a work of fiction and does not assert that this is a depiction of historical events, some reviewers here seem to have tried to label this film as "propaganda" and as being an "Arm of the U.S. Government's War Machine" because it depicts the U.S. military as something other than a rowdy gang of puppy-tossing, blood hungry murderers and thugs. This is somewhat upsetting. After seeing this movie I was inspired by the message that the movie sent, and was reminded of how there really was a time in American history where Americans were somewhat cognizant of how things actually work in the world. A time when Americans actually supported the country which birthed them, pampered them, and allowed them to enjoy a freedom so comfortable that it created an atmosphere capable of cultivating ANTI-American ideals.

This film is typical of American films that present us as benevolent occupiers rather than the aggressive colonizers we were.Contrary to the film's assertion, Filipinos were not simple people who were happy to have Americans occupying their country. The bloody Philippine-American War, during which Filipinos fought for their independence, lasted for four years. Some Americans, including William Jennings Bryan, Mark Twain, and Andrew Carnegie, strongly objected to the annexation of the Philippines. The U.S. declared victory in 1902, but in the south, Muslim Filipinos resisted until 1913, and the Americans never acquired complete control over the Muslim areas of Mindanao.The word "moro" used in the film to refer to the Muslims is a pejorative term used by the non-Muslim (i.e., Christian) majority, and Muslims o that time would not call themselves "moro." While it is historically accurate that there were Muslims pirates that attacked coastal villages, this film represents most Muslims as "native devils" and the non-Muslim Filipinos s as frightened children who need brave Americans to teach them courage. The reality is that Muslim Filipinos refused to be subjugated by American rule and fought a drawn-ought guerrilla war, the first of its kind in modern history and the only kind possible when faced with the wealth and power of the U.S colonial machinery.When you are fighting against troops that are illegally occupying your country, is that a rebellion or is it self-defense? The current situation in Iraq shows that not much has changed over 100 years later.

The USA didn't have much of a foreign colonialist period. Like Germany, we came rather late to the game. Besides which Americans were busy colonizing their own interior.But in the mid- to late 1930s stories of colonial adventures abroad seemed to become suddenly popular in Hollywood, or at least simplified and romanticized versions of same. Gary Cooper was in a surprising number of them. Usually they're a lot of nonsensical fun. Discounting American Westerns, there were "Gunga Din," "Lives of a Bengal Lancer," "Beau Geste," "Morroco," "The Charge of the Light Brigade," others whose names escape me, and this one, "The Real Glory." It takes place in the land of the Moros (Filipino Moslems) who resent the Westernization of their cobbled-together country by first Spain, then, after the Spanish-American war, the Americans. That war is still being fought. But, not to worry, everything in the movie turns out alright in the end -- well, almost.Gary Cooper, David Niven, and Broderick Crawford are Army lieutenants stationed at an undermanned fort surrounded by jungle and enemies. If you think of this as a rather typical situation for this sort of action movie, you're probably on the right track. It usually leads to a heroic defense of the fort by our side. And it gives the writers a chance to have hordes of evildoers charging the fort to be mowed down in rows like wheat by a motorized reaper. There must be at least one heroic sacrifice too, of a secondary character. Sometimes there's just one (Gunga Din) and sometimes, as here, both Niven and Crawford are given a chance to make the supreme sacrifice. Of the two sacrifices, Crawford's is the more supreme. A harmless, doltish officer who is devoted to growing orchids, he is captured by the Moros, his head smeared with honey, and then he is buried up to his neck in an ant hill. Those Moros were pitiless cookies. If I'm not mistaken the Colt Model 1911 .45 caliber automatic, a veritable cannon at the time, was developed partly because smaller caliber pistols were thought unable to stop a charging Moro.The rafting scenes were done, it appears, in the lower reaches of the Kern River. This is a dangerous area to raft or inner-tube in. It's the only rushing water for ten thousand miles around Bakersfield, California, and is a popular bathing spot in the summer, even though a few rafters and tubers usually are lost. It's interesting too in that it is the only known home of the Kern Valley salamander (Batrachoseps simatus), and only for a stretch of a few miles along the bank -- and only the northern bank.I think I like Gunga Din better because there is more slapstick, more laughs all around, and because the characters are a little better developed. But "The Real Glory" is nothing to be ashamed of. An enjoyable romp by stars wearing colorful uniforms in an exotic location and involved in a conflict nobody ever heard of.