PT 109 (1963)

(On Cable TV, March 2020) Twenty-first century viewers may be forgiven for not knowing that future president John F. Kennedy spent much of World War II captaining his own PT boat, even performing heroics when it was sunk by the Japanese and his crew needed to be rescued. But I can guarantee you that few Americans of voting age in 1960 did not know that story—it was an integral part of the JFK mythos, the young good-looking politician who had proven his mettle during WW2. PT 109 is a semi-hagiographic war film dramatizing those 1943 events, with Cliff Robertson playing the young and heroic president-to-be. JFK is said to have influenced the production of the film, although he insisted that the film remain historical and not without a few criticisms of his early actions. War movie enthusiasts may balk at this focus on a specific individual, but fortunately, PT 109 has more on its mind: it manages to deliver a credible depiction of a team of men during wartime. You can certainly compare it to the 1945 John Wayne PT boat movie They Were Expendable, except that this one is in colour, benefits from fifteen years’ worth of filmmaking improvements, already knows how WW2 will turn out (hence a looser tone), and is shot in colour. While not a great movie, PT 109 is reasonably interesting despite too long of a running time and not quite as heavy on hagiography as it could have been.