Details

Release year: 1958

Storyline

An American cavalry brigade is sent to occupy a small Filipino village in 1902 and quell guerilla resistance in the surrounding jungle. Working with the people to build roads, schools, and bridges, they prove that the most important thing an army can have is "good will and integrity."

Top credits

Directors

Writers

Eddie Romero

Cast

John Agar — Sgt. Judd Norcutt
Pancho Magalona — Capt. Magno Maxalla
Alicia Vergel — Laura
Richard Arlen — Sgt. Jim Heisler

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Did you know

• This was director Eddie Romero's first English-language film for international release. With Cirio H. Santiago of Premiere-People's Pictures and long-time collaborator Gerardo de Leon, he co-produced and directed this film, a period movie set in the early days of the American occupation of the Philippines. The American cast included John Agar, Richard Arlen, William Phipps and Myron Healey. The Filipino cast had Pancho Magalona, Alicia Vergel, Eddie Infante, Cielito, Boy Planas, Vic Diaz and Max Alvarado. At the Fifth Asian Festival held in Manila in April 1958, Boy Planas--who played the brother of Magno Maxalla (Pancho Magalona)--won the Best Child Actor award. The movie made its theatrical debut in the US in 1963 as "Cavalry Command" and was later released in home video with the same title. Alicia Vergel had a kissing scene with star John Agar. Her reaction: "It was my first movie kiss and I certainly hoped it was my last. I was so nervous that I didn't feel anything. [Producer] Cirio Santiago and [director] Eddie Romero were mad at me when we were shooting scenes in Vigan because I didn't like to do the kissing scene. It was only when we were back in Manila that I consented to go into the clinch". Vergel did the kissing sequence after viewing the first rushes of the picture; she suddenly realized that the picture would be dull in America without it. "Besides", she said, "I don't want it said Filipinos don't know how to kiss. But I insisted on only take, Agar commented he liked the kiss so much that he wanted one more take. But I lifted my Maria Clara dress and ran like the dickens, bawling all the while. Later, John teased me: 'I feel insulted. You are my first leading lady I kissed who cried'."

• Shot in 1958, not released in the U.S. until 1963.