"The Bamboo Prison" - (1954)

 

                                          

This film was actually banned in a number of cities after the Korean War. It came out just about a year and a half after the Armistice was signed at Panmunjom.

Robert Francis, the young actor who played the Juinor officer in the 1954 film "The Caine Mutiny"  plays a young POW who gives into Korean brainwashing and receives special privileges. But he is not what he seems. He is working with another POW played by Brian Keith to find information that can be used by the United Nations to prosecute the North Koreans for War Crimes and end the war. They were sucessful in doing so.

E.G. Marshall plays a Priest, but he is also not what he seems to be. He is actually an Intelligence  Agent placed by the Russians in the camp. Richard Loo and Keye Luke play two of the North Koreans. And a young Aaron Spelling plays a role as a POW named Skinny. Of course he went on to higher things producing hit TV shows, so it is interesting to see him act.

I won't go too far into the film's plot as it would serve as a spoiler. Suffice to say that this film is a very important link in understanding the complexities of the War, which never resulted in a treaty. As in most wars, there are no real winners.

In reality, several of the POW's who served the North Koreans were offered amnesty to return home but remained in North Korea making propaganda films for the Communists. We will never know whether any of those men sacrificed going home to remain as American agents as all information on that subject is still "Classified."

Interesting note about Robert Francis, who made two films in 1954; "The Caine Mutiny" and "The Bamboo Prison." The following year he played in two other films before dying in a private plane crash in California. He was only 25 years old. We will never really know far he would have gone in making films, but judging by his first two, he would have made quite a mark. At a time when Marlon Brando and James Dean were playing the anti-hero roles, Robert Francis was playing clean cut "boy next door" roles.

This film is one of only 3 films made regarding the subject of brainwashing and abuse of American prisoners of war during the Korean War were dramatized in "P.O.W." in 1953 and also "Prisoner of War", starring Ronald Reagan in 1954. I don't  count "The Manchurian Candidate" starring Frank Sinatra, as that was made in 1962.

Still, that film stands as a very realistic portrayal of the Mind Control used by the Communists during the war to create "sleeper agents" living in the United States, although it takes place after the war had been over almost 10 years.

"The Grandfather Clock" by Henry Clay Work (1876)

 Aside from "Jack Jumped Over the Candlestick" one of the first songs I remember learning was in Kindergarten was the one about the Grandfather Clock. For some odd reason I woke in the middle of the night with part of the song running through my head. And though I immediately recalled the whole story, I had to look up the full lyrics. I only remember learning part of the song in school.

American songwriter Henry Clay Work, who had written the Civil War song "Marching Through Georgia", wrote the clock song while traveling in England in 1876. He had stopped at The George Hotel in Piercebridge, County Durham, England. He was very taken by the "long case clock" in the lobby of the hotel. 

Asking about the clock, he was told that it had only two owners. After the first owner died, the clock became unreliable, and then, when the second owner died, the clock ceased working altogether. This story was the genisis for the song. 

The sheet music for the song sold over 1 million copies and became very popular in the days before recordings. It was sung in bars and parlors all over the world. The earliest known recording of the song was in 1905 by The Edison Quartet on one of those wax cylinders.

After World War Two the song even became popular in Japan, leading to an animation of the lyrics. It also forever changed the term "long case clock" into what we now commonly call "Grandfather Clocks." Such is the power of a good song.

You can find a few versions on The internet, in case you don't recall the melody. I'm not sure I ever heard a record of it. Rather I remember my Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Gerber, at P.S. 197 in Brooklyn, playing the song, which is where I first learned the lyrics. In my mind's eye there is a piano involved, though I'm not really sure there was a piano in the classroom. She used a stick, or pointer, to augment the "tick tock, tick tock" in the song. 

"The Grandfather Clock" by Henry Clay Work (1876)

"My grandfather's clock was too large for the shelf,

So it stood ninety years on the floor;

It was taller by half than the old man himself,

Though it weighed not a pennyweight more.

It was bought on the morn of the day that he was born,

And was always his treasure and pride;

But it stopp'd short — never to go again —

When the old man died.

Ninety years without slumbering

(tick, tick, tick, tick), His life seconds numbering,

(tick, tick, tick, tick), It stopp'd short — never to go again —When the old man died.

In watching its pendulum swing to and fro,

Many hours had he spent while a boy.

And in childhood and manhood the clock seemed to know

And to share both his grief and his joy.

For it struck twenty-four when he entered at the door,

With a blooming and beautiful bride;

But it stopp'd short — never to go again —

When the old man died.

Ninety years without slumbering

(tick, tick, tick, tick), His life seconds numbering,

(tick, tick, tick, tick), It stopp'd short — never to go again —When the old man died.

My grandfather said that of those he could hire,

Not a servant so faithful he found;

For it wasted no time, and had but one desire —

At the close of each week to be wound.

And it kept in its place — not a frown upon its face,

And its hands never hung by its side.

But it stopp'd short — never to go again —

When the old man died.

Ninety years without slumbering

(tick, tick, tick, tick), His life seconds numbering,

(tick, tick, tick, tick), It stopp'd short — never to go again —When the old man died.

It rang an alarm in the dead of the night —

An alarm that for years had been dumb;

And we knew that his spirit was pluming for flight —

That his hour of departure had come.

Still the clock kept the time, with a soft and muffled chime,

As we silently stood by his side;

But it stopp'd short — never to go again —

When the old man died.

Ninety years without slumbering

(tick, tick, tick, tick), His life seconds numbering,

(tick, tick, tick, tick), It stopp'd short — never to go again —When the old man died."

Reaching Out

Reaching out you take a chance;
on the hand that might touch you.
Reaching out to dance a dance
there's one reaching for you, too.

Good and bad, there's a hand
can stop you in your tracks.
But pull away, you'll never know
that hand was reaching back.