Go for Broke! (1951)
A white lieutenant from Texas, sore at being assigned to the Army's segregated Japanese American unit, trains and then leads a platoon of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team through the Italian and French campaigns. Their courage under fire slowly wears his prejudice down.
Written and directed by Robert Pirosh straight after his Battleground screenplay, and cast largely with actual 442nd veterans, Go for Broke! was an unusually direct studio rebuke to wartime anti-Japanese prejudice, released while the incarceration camps were still recent memory. MGM let the copyright lapse, and the film is now in the public domain.
Background
Go for Broke! was written and directed by Robert Pirosh and released by MGM in 1951. Van Johnson stars as a white lieutenant assigned to the segregated 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a unit made up of Japanese American soldiers. Pirosh had written the screenplay for Battleground (1949), and the film used several actual veterans of the 442nd in its cast. It was one of the rare studio films of the early 1950s to take on wartime prejudice against Japanese Americans directly.
What to watch for
Johnson’s lieutenant begins the film resentful of his assignment, and his change of heart over the course of the campaign forms the film’s arc. Watch the training scenes and the platoon’s growing bond, as the courage the soldiers show under fire gradually wears down his prejudice. The Italian and French campaign scenes provide the combat set pieces. Pay attention to the Japanese American soldiers, who are central characters rather than background figures, since that choice shows the film’s intent. The picture was made only a few years after the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans, which gives its portrayal of loyalty and prejudice an immediate context.
