“When Hell Was In Session”

For this edition, let us all take a retrospective look at a feature-length movie which genre can be categorized as a combination of war, action, biography and drama.

The subject movie is “WHEN HELL WAS IN SESSION” which was released in 1979.

“WHEN HELL WAS IN SESSION”

Cast of Characters: Hal Holbrook, Eva Marie Saint, Mako, James Hong

This was a feature-length movie which was made for television and was broadcast in the United States of America.

Later, in the early 1980s, this movie was shown as a feature presentation on prime time and afternoon slots at BBC 2, a television channel then in the Philippines. BBC, which is now defunct, stood for Banahaw Broadcasting Corporation which was then located in Broadcast City, Quezon City, Metro Manila.

The timeline of the movie, which was based on the true story of a United States Navy pilot and ranking officer, was set during the Vietnam War.

The basis of the story of the television movie was the memoir written in a book, with the same title, by U.S. Navy Admiral Jeremiah Denton. It recounted his experiences as an American Prisoner Of War (POW) during the Vietnam War. His rank then was Navy Commander. Holbrook played the role of Denton.

During a bombing mission over North Vietnam in July 1965, his jet was shot down in the said area. He and his navigator, Bill Tschudy, parachuted down and were taken as prisoners. Both men spent seven years and seven months in North Vietnam as often tortured POWs.

Denton was held by his captors in various brutal POW camps during the said period. He endured horrendous years as a POW. He was subjected to torture, starvation, psychological warfare and terrible living conditions brought on by his North Vietnamese captors (played by Mako and Hong) to break his will. His captors failed because his courage and faith in God became stronger during these times. He made a cross from wooden sticks he found in his prison cell which he used in his prayers.

The plot details Denton’s efforts to organize a resistance movement among his fellow prisoners. Meanwhile, in the United States, his wife, Jane (Saint) is arranging a POW wives league which is an advocacy group in order to popularize their plight and to keep the communication alive between the prisoners.

The POWs in North Vietnam were used by their captors in propaganda films during the Vietnam War. Denton appeared in one of these films which were shown later to the American public. He took advantage of this by sending a message to his family, colleagues in the American military and his fellow Americans on his treatment as a prisoner by his captors. Using as a ruse his alleged sensitivity to lights, he winked his eyes using the Morse Code. From this code, he spelled the word TORTURE.

The film ends with a powerful re-enactment of Denton’s homecoming, as originally seen by millions of Americans who watched it on television in 1973. His homecoming happened in the Clark Air Base in the Philippines, which is a military base occupied then by the United States. This re-enactment scene was also shot in the said actual place.

The chosen images that were used for this feature post were courtesy of the following selected online resources as our references:

• utlet.historicimages.com
• videospace.fi
• famousfix.com
• youtube.com

That’s all for now.

Until the next feature post.

Happier Days Ahead To All Of Us!

POST SCRIPT

Denton was among the first batch of the U.S. POWs released by North Vietnam in February 1973 in accordance with the Paris Peace Accords. He was 41 years old when he was captured. He was released at the age of 48. He was imprisoned in brutal conditions in and around Hanoi. He spent four years in solitary confinement, including two years in a cell with the size of a refrigerator.

He was promoted to the rank of the Captain of the U.S. Navy while imprisoned. He retired from the same branch of military service with the rank of Rear Admiral. He became the head of the Armed Forces Staff College in Virginia. He was elected in 1980 in the United States Senate as a Senator for Alabama. He served for only one term, from 1981 to 1987. He died at the age of 89 in 2014.