PT 109 (film)

In August 1942, the American forces are fighting the Japanese in the Pacific. U.S. Navy Lieutenant, junior grade John F. Kennedy uses his family's influence to get himself assigned to the fighting in the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Theater during World War II. He lobbies for command of a PT boat and is given the badly damaged 109. Initially, Commander C. R. Ritchie, the base boat maintenance officer on Tulagi, is unimpressed with the young, untested Kennedy, but the lieutenant is undaunted and restores the 109 to operational status. His crew includes the executive officer, Ensign Leonard J. Thom, and initially skeptical sailors "Bucky" Harris and Edmund Drewitch.

The PT 109 is sent to evacuate paramarines pinned down after their Raid on Choiseul. Kennedy takes aboard the survivors, but barely gets out of range of Japanese mortars before running out of fuel. The tide starts to carry the boat back toward the island. Another PT boat arrives just in time to tow the 109 to safety.

While on patrol one dark, moonless night in August 1943, the 109 encounters a Japanese destroyer which appears suddenly out of the darkness, rams and slices her in two, killing two of the thirteen crewmen (Marney and Kirksey). Kennedy leads the survivors to Plum Pudding Island, towing a badly burned crewman. The wreckage is spotted by a reconnaissance plane, and Kennedy and his men are presumed dead. After dark, Kennedy swims out into the channel, staying out all night in the hope of signaling a passing Allied vessel, but without success. The next night, he sends out his friend, Ensign George Ross. After several days, morale drops and several of the men are ready to give themselves up. However, two natives show up in a canoe. They do not understand English, so Kennedy carves a message on a coconut and gives it to them. They take it to Australian coastwatcher Lieutenant Reginald Evans. Evans notifies the US Navy, and the men are picked up. According to standard policy, Kennedy and his men are eligible to transfer back to the US, but he elects to stay.

• Cliff Robertson as Lt. (j.g.) John F. Kennedy
• Ty Hardin as Ensign Leonard J. Thom
• James Gregory as Commander C. R. Ritchie
• Robert Culp as Ensign George "Barney" Ross
• Grant Williams as Lt. Alvin Cluster
• Lew Gallo as Yeoman Rogers
• Errol John as Benjamin Kevu
• Michael Pate as Lt. Reginald Evans, RANVR           
• Robert Blake as Charles "Bucky" Harris
• William Douglas as Gerard Zinser
• Biff Elliot as Edgar E. Mauer
• Norman Fell as Edmund Drewitch
• Sam Gilman as Raymond Starkey
• Clyde Howdy as Leon Drawdy
• Buzz Martin as Maurice Kowal
• James McCallion as Pat McMahon
• Joseph Gallison as Harold Marney
• Sammy Reese as Andrew Kirksey
• Glenn Sipes as William Johnson
• John Ward as John Maguire
• David Whorf as Raymond Albert
• Dean Smith as Lt. Liebenow
• Andrew Duggan, narrator (uncredited)
• George Takei, helmsman of the Japanese destroyer (uncredited)

JFK's father, Joseph Kennedy, had been a Hollywood producer and head of the RKO studio at one point, and he used his influence to negotiate the film rights to Donovan's biography of his son.[1] The film was made under the "personal supervision" of Warner's head of production, Jack L. Warner.[1] The White House sent Alvin Cluster, a wartime buddy of JFK,[3] who was also his former commanding officer, as well as a PT boat commander to act as a liaison between Warners and the White House for the film.

The White House had full approval of casting and other aspects of the film. Among other actors considered for the lead were Peter Fonda, who objected to having to do his screen test with an impersonation of JFK's voice;[4] Warren Beatty (Jacqueline Kennedy's choice);[1] Jeffrey Hunter,[5] who had just finished playing Jesus Christ in King of Kings; and Warner Bros Television contract stars Edd Byrnes, Peter Brown, Chad Everett, and Roger Smith. Kennedy selected Robertson after viewing the screen tests. Robertson met with President Kennedy, who set three conditions on the film: that it be historically accurate, that profits go to the survivors of the PT 109 and their families, and he have the final choice of lead actor.[6]

Though Robertson bore little physical resemblance to JFK and was nearly forty years old at the time the film was made, Alvin Cluster told Robertson "The President picked you not only because you were a fine actor but because you're young looking, yet mature enough so that the world won't get the idea the President was being played by a parking lot attendant or something".[7] In his autobiography Kookie, No More Edd Byrnes said he was told "President John F. Kennedy didn't want to be played by "Kookie".

Kennedy also vetoed Raoul Walsh as the director of the film after screening Walsh's Marines Let's Go and not liking it. Original director Lewis Milestone, who had previously filmed All Quiet on the Western Front, A Walk in the Sun, and Pork Chop Hill, left the production, either because Milestone thought that the script was inadequate or because the studio was unhappy with cost overruns.[1] Milestone was replaced by Leslie Martinson, a television director with little experience making films.[8]

The exteriors were filmed at Little Palm Island (formerly Little Munson Island), now a resort in the Florida Keys. Power and fresh water were run out to the island for the film, allowing the resort to be built years later. The building of the sets and the bringing in of boats and other paraphernalia gave rise to rumors of another US invasion of Cuba.[1]

At the time the film was being planned, it was found that the few surviving 80-foot Elco PT boats were not in operational condition, and though a further search was conducted, it was determined that none could be located for use in the film, since almost all had been destroyed at the end of World War II. Former World War II-era USAAF (United States Army Air Forces) 85-foot crash boats were converted to resemble Elcos. These crash boats were designed by Dair N. Long in 1944 and their use as movie props were ideal because they possessed performance and profiles similar to the Elcos. American AT-6 Texan training planes stood in for Japanese Zeroes.[1]

US Navy support also included a Landing Ship Tank (LST) (one of 1,051 built during the war), the destroyer USS Saufley, and smaller vessels such as landing craft and motor whaleboats from nearby Naval Station Key West.

After seeing the film, Kennedy called PT 109 a "good product," but worried about the 2 hour, 20-minute length. "It's just a question of whether there's too much of it".[9]

In the film, the PT 109 and all other PT boats are depicted as being painted in the same standard gray paint scheme used by larger warships of the US Navy. Although many Higgins and Elco PT boats were likely delivered from the manufacturer in such a paint scheme, all historical records indicate that the real PT 109 and the other boats in its squadron were painted in a dark green paint scheme in order to better blend into their daytime anchorages or moorings adjacent to island jungles at forward operating bases. The most common green color scheme of this period was designated as Design 5P and incorporated Navy Green over a base coat of Ocean Green.[10][11]

PT 109 is reported missing and a search is started. According to National Geographic and the original book, the boat explosion was observed from other PT boats in the vicinity and it was given up as lost. A memorial service was held at the motor torpedo boat squadron's forward operating base at Rendova while the crew was still marooned on the islands in the vicinity of Japanese-held Kolombagara Island.

Solomon Islanders Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana were portrayed as random natives, when in fact they were dispatched by the coastwatcher Arthur Reginald Evans to find the sailors. The film shows Ensign Ross first suggesting the idea of using a coconut for a message, using a knife to carve it. Gasa was later interviewed as suggesting the idea and sending Kumana to pluck a fresh coconut. The actors playing Gasa and Kumana were not credited, though the senior native is mentioned by name when the large canoe arrives.

The scene showing the rescue of ambushed Marines is actually covered by the chapter in the book about PT 59, which Kennedy commanded after the PT 109. It was an older model 77-foot Elco PT boat that was converted to a gunboat with its torpedoes removed.

PT 109 was released to lukewarm critical response, although Robertson received good reviews.[1] As of June 2012, Rotten Tomatoes rates the film at 63% approval.[12] A recent review comments that "One of the screenplay's pluses ... is its concentration on the minor but still deadly activities that were undertaken by thousands of men during World War II. Not everyone was involved with the major assaults; many spent their time risking their lives in places and situations of which most people are totally unaware, and it's a nice change of pace to see this aspect of the war dramatized."[13]

The film was nominated for the 2006 American Film Institute list AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers.[14]

In some Canadian cities, such as Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, PT 109 premiered in theaters on November 22, 1963, the day that Kennedy was assassinated.[15]

Warner Home Video released the film on video on February 9, 1983 as part of their "A Night At the Movies" series, featuring a Hearst Metrotone Newsreel; a Warner Bros. animated short; and a coming attractions trailer of films from 1963.[16] It is now out of print on VHS. Warner Archives released the DVD in the United States on May 10, 2011.[17] Video CDs meant for sale outside the US can be found online, though the quality is not as good as VHS.

The film has occasionally aired on Turner Classic Movies and as of 2011 and 2012, the film has also periodically aired in letterbox format on the Military Channel in the United States.

According to Oliver Stone's interview on the Nerdist podcast on November 20, 2013, PT 109 would be included in Stone's box set of Untold History documentary mini-series (also available on Blu-ray).[18]

• Gold Key: PT 109 (September 1964)[19][20]

• List of American films of 1963
• Cultural depictions of John F. Kennedy

Wikiquote has quotations related to: PT 109 (film)

• PT 109 on IMDb
• PT 109 at the TCM Movie Database
• PT 109 at AllMovie
• PT 109 at the American Film Institute Catalog
• movie trailer on Google video