''Prisoner of War'' is a 1954 American

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

–

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

directed by

Andrew Marton Andrew Marton (born Endre Marton; 26 January 1904 – 7 January 1992) was a Hungarian-American film director. In his career, he directed 39 films and television programs, and worked on 16 as a second unit director, including the chariot race in ...

and starring

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

, Steve Forrest, Dewey Martin and

Oskar Homolka Oskar Homolka (August 12, 1898 – January 27, 1978) was an Austrian film and theatre actor, who went on to work in Germany, Britain and America. Both his voice and his appearance fitted him for roles as communist spies or Soviet officials, for w ...

Plot

An American officer volunteers to be captured in order to investigate claims of abuse against American POWs in

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...

n camps during the

Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...

Cast

as Webb Sloane * Steve Forrest as Cpl. Joseph Robert Stanton * Dewey Martin as Jesse Treadman *

as Col. Nikita I. Biroshilov (as Oscar Homolka) * Robert Horton as Francis Aloysius Belney * Paul Stewart as Capt. Jack Hodges *

Harry Morgan Harry Morgan (born Harry Bratsberg; April 10, 1915 – December 7, 2011) was an American actor and director whose television and film career spanned six decades. Morgan's major roles included Pete Porter in both ''December Bride'' (1954–1959 ...

as Maj. O.D. Hale * Stephen Bekassy as Lt. Georgi M. Robovnik * Leonard Strong as Col. Kim Doo Yi *

Darryl Hickman Darryl Gerard Hickman (born July 28, 1931) is an American former actor, screenwriter, television executive, and acting coach. He started his career as a child actor in the Golden Age of Hollywood and appeared in numerous TV serials as an adult. ...

as Merton Tollivar *

Weaver Levy Weaver Levy was a Chinese American character actor who had a long career in Hollywood that began in the 1940s and continued through the early 1980s. He was best known for his main role in the TV series '' Adventures in Paradise''. Biography W ...

as Red Guard *

Rollin Moriyama Ryoichi "Rollin" Moriyama (sometimes credited as Roland Moriyama) was a Japanese character actor who was active in Hollywood from the 1940s through the 1980s. Biography Rollin was born in Fukushima, Japan, in 1907. He arrived in San Francisco, Ca ...

as Capt. Lang Hyun Choi *

Ike Jones Isaac Lolette Jones (December 23, 1929 – October 5, 2014) was an American film producer and actor. In June 1953, he became the first African American graduate of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and was the first African Ame ...

as Benjamin Julesberg *

Clarence Lung Clarence Lung (1914–1993) was a film and television actor. He appeared in films such as '' Dragon Seed'', ''Song of the Sarong'', ''Experiment in Terror'', ''Prisoner Of War'', ''Operation Petticoat'', '' China'' and ''The Hundred Days of the D ...

MVD The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation (MVD; russian: Министерство внутренних дел (МВД), ''Ministerstvo vnutrennikh del'') is the interior ministry of Russia. The MVD is responsible for law enfor ...

officer *

Jerry Paris William Gerald Paris (July 25, 1925 – March 31, 1986) was an American actor and director best known for playing Jerry Helper, the dentist and next-door neighbor of Rob and Laura Petrie, on ''The Dick Van Dyke Show'', and for directing the majo ...

as Axel Horstrom *

John Lupton John Rollin Lupton (August 23, 1928 – November 3, 1993) was an American film and television actor. Early years Lupton was the son of Adelma Lupton and Dorothy Marsh Lupton. He developed an interest in drama while he was a student at Sh ...

as Lt. Peter Reilly *

Ralph Ahn Ralph Philander Ahn (September 28, 1926 – February 26, 2022) was an American actor. He was the last surviving son of leading Korean independence activist Dosan Ahn Chang-ho. His father's contributions to the Korean independence movement influe ...

as Red Guard * Peter Hansen as Capt. Fred Osborne *

Strother Martin Strother Douglas Martin Jr. (March 26, 1919 – August 1, 1980) was an American character actor who often appeared in support of John Wayne and Paul Newman and in Western films directed by John Ford and Sam Peckinpah. Among Martin's memorable pe ...

as Man on Crutches *

Gordon Mitchell Gordon Mitchell (born Charles Allen Pendleton; July 29, 1923 – September 20, 2003) was an American actor and bodybuilder who made about 200 B movies. Biography Charles Allen Pendleton was born in Denver, Colorado, and began working out in hi ...

as Bit Role *

Dick Sargent Richard Stanford Cox (April 19, 1930 – July 8, 1994), known professionally as Dick Sargent, was an American actor, notable as the second actor to portray Darrin Stephens on ABC's fantasy situation comedy ''Bewitched''. He took the name ''Dick ...

as Lt. Leonard Lee *

Stuart Whitman Stuart Maxwell Whitman (February 1, 1928 – March 16, 2020) was an American actor, known for his lengthy career in film and television. Whitman was born in San Francisco and raised in New York until the age of 12, when his family relocated to ...

as Captain (uncredited) * Jastin Ardiente as Captain Dick Sargent- Big timmies tities

Production notes

The working titles of this film were The P.O.W. Story and The Prisoner of War Story. Production Dates: 12 Dec 1953–2 Jan 1954 Capt. Robert H. Wise, who lost 90 lbs in a North Korean POW camp, served as the film's technical advisor and said that the torture scenes in the movie were based on actual incidents. Release of the film created a minor controversy. The U.S. Army had assisted production and made edits in the script, but approval was abruptly reversed on the eve of release. The depiction of mistreatment of prisoners complicated the courts martial of POW collaborators that were proceeding at the time. The brainwashing and abuse of American prisoners of war during the

was also dramatized in ''

P.O.W. A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of w ...

'' (1953), ''

The Bamboo Prison ''The Bamboo Prison'' is a 1954 American Korean War film–drama film directed by Lewis Seiler and starring Robert Francis, Brian Keith, Dianne Foster, and Jerome Courtland. The working title was ''I Was a Prisoner in Korea''. The US Army denied ...

'' (1954), and ''

The Manchurian Candidate ''The Manchurian Candidate'' is a novel by Richard Condon, first published in 1959. It is a political thriller about the son of a prominent U.S. political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for a Communist conspiracy. The ...

'' (1962, starring

Frank Sinatra Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Chairman of the Board" and later called "Ol' Blue Eyes", Sinatra was one of the most popular ...

Reception

According to MGM records the film made $785,000 in the US and Canada and $292,000 elsewhere, resulting in a profit of $111,000.

Historical accuracy

Author Robert J. Lentz of the book ''Korean War Filmography: 91 English Language Features through 2000'' states that the film was "undeniably overstated".

Plot

Cast

Production notes

Reception

Historical accuracy

References

Sources

External links

See also