The Real Glory (1939)

In 'The Real Glory' Gary Cooper, David Niven and Broderick Crawford are among the American solders tasked with training Filipino forces to fight Muslim insurgents on the southern islands back in 1906. Unfortunate parallel's to recent events are hard to escape, as is the films revisionism, seeming to imply the Americans were leaving the people of the Philippines to largely govern themselves, which would really not be the case until after World War II. Really a mediocre film, there is good reason it has been forgotten. The movie feels like it was made to piggy back off the success of Gunga Din, which came out earlier the same year, but it fails to capture any of the energy that film had. The one real stand out in the picture is actress Andrea Leeds who plays fellow Montanan Cooper's love interest, she looks like a lost Fontane sister and draws you too her any time she is on the screen. This promising actress left film the next year at 27 to raise a family. **