Sadly Over-hyped

Absolutely Fantastic

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

CHINA'S LITTLE DEVILS 1945 This one is a real low budget wartime quickie, put out by bottom end studio, Monogram. This flag waving programmer stars, Ducky Louie, Paul Kelly, Harry Carey, Jim Dodd, Gloria Ann Chew, Hayward Soo Hoo and Richard Loo.Several pilots with the Flying Tigers, Jimmy Dodd and Paul Kelly rescue a young lad they find after a Japanese air raid. The squadron pilots adopt the boy (Ducky Louie) as sort of a mascot. The men collect funds and send the boy to a mission school ran by American Harry Carey.The lad, Louie, is not the least bit interested in "book learning'. He just wants to get even with the Japanese for killing his family and friends. He is soon leading his fellow students on raids of the nearby Japanese supply dumps. The kids thieve rifles and ammo which they pass on to the local Chinese underground.When Harry Carey discovers what is going on he tries to talk the kids out of dangerous raids. Of course this does not work. The kids led by Louie, become bolder with each raid, stealing ammo as well as using grenades to blow up Japanese fuel dumps. The area is soon plastered with wanted poster for the kids offering a big reward for info.The raids continue and the Japanese now grab up school teacher Carey. December 7th 1941 has arrived and Japan and the States are now at war. The kids pull a sneak raid on Japanese headquarters and spring Harry Carey. They also rescue a couple of Flying Tiger pilots who have been shot down.The kids are now armed up and fight a rear guard action while Carey and the Flying Tiger types make good their escape. Ducky Louie and the others are all killed, but they do stop the Japanese long enough for the others to get away.This is not what one would call a good film, however, taken as the low rent programmer that it is, it supplies plenty of action at a decent pace. This 74 minute time-waster was produced by actor, Grant Withers. Suppling the music is seventeen time nominated, and four time Oscar winner, Dimitri Tiomkin.

I saw this in the early 1950's broadcast in Minneapolis/St. Paul between late 1953 and 1956. It made a big impression upon me so that I do remember the name but only some sketchy scenes. For an 8 or 10 year old it was exciting.I never saw it rebroadcast and had almost convinced myself that it was a figment of imagination.I too would like to view this film to see if it "holds up" over time or would be as laughable as "Action in the North Atlantic" which is only shown now because it has Bogart. Would this movie compare or contrast to "The Big Red One", "Tora, Tora, Tora", "Das Boot" or "All Quiet on the Western Front"?

This story is better than the original Hollywood film "The Flying Tigers" in a couple of respects. It tells of the willingness of the Chinese people in those days to cooperate with America. The "Devils" were (as with the "Devil's Brigade" in Germany) named by the enemy they pestered. The second point is: it shows how youths in all societies, in all periods of time, and in all philosophies have been the powerful force in vanquishing an enemy of freedom. These boys, some as young as five years old, formed a very tightly bound band of saboteurs who plagued the Japanese invaders - not only by blowing up their resources. They also salvaged fuel - which was common to the war machines of both sides - and helped keep the Flying Tigers in the air in their "pursuit" against the aggressors. I enclose "pursuit" in quotes because that was the primary mission of the P-40 aircraft: The "P" stands for pursuit.

I saw this movie with my folks at the Michigan Theater in Detroit, Michigan when it came out first run. I was eight years old at the time. I remember it as being extremely exciting and have remembered it many times over the last half century+. Having come late to the internet and taped movies, I have begun a search for a copy on tape and have so far been unsuccessful.If my memory holds correct, then it would be, if not a best seller, at least worth a distributor's time and effort to tape it.There is so much trash made these days that it must be worth while to delve into some of the oldies but goodies.Thank you!