Charming and brutal

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Cry Havoc was based on a play by Allan Kenward which the Shuberts produced on Broadway and ran for a grand total of 11 performances over the Christmas/New Year's days of 1942-43. But what flops on Broadway can sometimes be a great success on screen and vice versa. In this case the subject matter had already been thoroughly covered in the Paramount film So Proudly We Hail and Cry Havoc runs a distinct second to that film. Like the Paramount film, Cry Havoc deals with nurses in the Phillipines after Pearl Harbor and their experiences during the Japanese attack.Margaret Sullavan was fulfilling the terms of an MGM contract with this movie. Afterwards she would concentrate on the stage and would only do one more film years later, No Sad Songs For Me. She plays the no nonsense army nurse with several new charges rushed up to the Bataan front among them Joan Blondell and Ann Sothern. Fay Bainter played Sullavan's superior and she also was winding up her MGM contract as well.There are no substantial male roles in this film, they're seen briefly in fighting roles and of course as casualties. If you don't blink you'll see Robert Mitchum utter a couple of words and then die. Sullavan and Sothern have a rivalry going over an unseen army lieutenant.In fact on the set they had a rivalry going as well. According to a recent biography of Margaret Sullavan, she and Sothern did not get along so their scenes together had some real bite. Sullavan felt that Sothern was slipping into her popular Maisie character for which she was doing a B picture series for MGM. Cry Havoc should be seen because anything that has Margaret Sullavan should be seen as she left us way too few films for posterity. But this really is quite inferior to So Proudly We Hail.

CRY HAVOC follows in the tradition of films like SO PROUDLY WE HAIL by dealing exclusively with nurses in the Philippines on active duty during WWII. MARGARET SULLAVAN is the lieutenant in charge of a group of gals including ANN SOTHERN, ELLA RAINES, FRANCES GIFFORD and JOAN BLONDELL, all of whom are inexperienced but have to learn the ropes fast during wartime bombardments.Based on a play, it barely shows its stage origins and presents a gritty story of nurses under stress doing the best they can under dire circumstances. MARGARET SULLAVAN and FAY BAINTER fret over having to deal with "wet-nosed kids" (as Sullavan calls them), all of them eventually becoming battle hardened after working conditions continually put them in harm's way. Watch for ROBERT MITCHUM in a brief unbilled bit as a dying soldier.Sullavan and Sothern argue over Sothern's infatuation for a man Sullavan loves and there's some trite dialog among the all-female cast when they get to exchange stories--but it's still an above average melodrama of women nurses during war.Summing up: Worth it for the gritty wartime bombardments and interesting cast, but don't expect anything great. Richard Thorpe's direction keeps the pace steadfast without too many lulls until the downbeat ending.

This was a great WW II film which supported the war effort in America as we were fighting Japan and Germany, huge evil threats to the world. This story revolves around some new nurses who have to experience bombing raids as they are about to eat their evening meals. Ann Southern, (Pat Conlin), Joan Blondell (Grace), Ella Raines (Connie Booth) and Marsha Hunt,(Flo Norris) "Chloe's Prayer",'05. All of these women had great careers in Hollywood, some were just character actresses like Marsha Hunt, who had a cute turned up nose and simply never got the man she fell in love with. During the Joseph McCarthy Era, when McCarthy was investigating actors for being associated with the Communist party, Marsha Hunt was placed on his Black List, which turned out to be a false story. This film is a definite look back at the past and the opportunity to see great actors just starting their careers on the Silver Screen in Hollywood.

I agree with almost all of the comments above, except in one important aspect. In calling "So Proudly We Hail" 'superior' to "Cry Havoc," the writer overlooks the fact that, as in most Golden Era films, women's stories were almost exclusively told in relation to their romantic relationships with men. What hobbles "So Proudly We Hail" (and it is a terrific film, don't get me wrong), is its constant undercutting the challenges and dangers faced by WWII American nurses in the Pacific by shifting the characters' priorities to romance. That detail is handled very nicely in "Cry Havoc" by having almost no men appear. "Smitty" and "Pat" face off over a man, sure, but we never see him and so it becomes a greater conflict about command, duty, subordinating oneself to the greater good etc. And face it, as wonderful as films from this era are, its all too rare (then and now!) that those kind of issues are presented as significant to women. So in some ways, although "Havoc" could be considered more static and talky (from its stage origins, as mentioned above), I find it "better" than "Proudly," because I feel it lets the women stand front and center -- and stay there. Enjoy this rarely seen film!