I briefly tried watching the National Memorial Day concert last evening before switching to the Memorial Day Marathon on Turner Classic Movies, where I found a film I’d never heard of called “Hell to Eternity.”

This 1960 movie tells the true story of Guy Gabaldon, a Marine who was raised by a Japanese family and who singlehandedly and peacefully took 1,500 prisoners on Saipan, aided by the Japanese language he learned as a child. 

It’s a rare film that depicts the incarceration of Japanese Americans in internment camps during the war and features Japanese actors playing Japanese characters. Also, while there are plenty of combat scenes, the movie ultimately glorifies not the fighting but our common humanity. 

Not a bad way to see in Memorial Day 2023. 

(From left, actor Jeffrey Hunter, the real Guy Gabaldon, and actor David Janssen from the set of the film “Hell to Eternity,” courtesy TCM.)