CIFF Student Classic Film Series: “They Were Expendable”

The Coronado Island Film Festival’s (CIFF) Student Classic Film Study Program is open to any upper-middle and high school students attending public, charter, or parochial schools, as well as those who are homeschooled. All students are welcome to attend and join the post-screening moderated discussion.

The 2025 The War That Shaped Our World CIFF Student Classic Film Series continues – To honor the 80th Anniversary of the end of WWI, the 2025 CIFF Student Classic Film Series continues to present a slate of Hollywood film classics made during and/or about WWII on Sunday March 16 at 1PM in the Library’s Winn Room with an “open to the entire community” screening of Legendary Hollywood Director John Ford’s They Were Expendable starring Robert Montgomery, John Wayne and Donna Reed. WWII themed screenings will continue through May. The complete Student Classic Series schedule and reservations are available on the CIFF Website under the “Year-Round” dropdown tab. All Student Classic screenings are free.

In October 1944, General Douglas McArthur returned to the Philippines, as he had promised, after being evacuated to Australia in 1942. Less than a year later, Japan surrendered, ending the Second World War. Director John Ford’s 1945 They Were Expendable is based on a bestselling book of the same name recounting the heroic actions of Navy officers and sailors assigned to Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Three during the disastrous fall of the Philippines in the wake of the December 7th 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Ford’s film is a fictionalized account of the exploits of Medal of Honor recipient John C. Bulkeley and the men of Squadron Three. Just before the fall of Corregidor, it was LT Bulkeley and his crew who evacuated MacArthur and his family aboard PT 41, a 77-foot motor torpedo boat, and carried them over 600 miles of open ocean to Mindanao, from where they were flown to Australia. As MacArthur put it, “You have taken me out of the jaws of death. I shall never forget it.”

MacArthur left behind more than 36,000 Army, Marine and Navy forces, including the men of Squadron Three, few of whom escaped the disastrous consequences of a military defeat that stunned our nation. The dogged resistance of those who remained delayed the Japanese advance. They bought, with their lives and blood, desperately needed time for the Pacific Fleet to rebuild and rearm to begin to take the fight to the enemy. More than 60,000 Filipino and 15,000 American prisoners of war suffered through the infamous 66-mile Bataan Death March. The film also honors The Angels of Bataan, the 11 Navy nurses, 67 Army nurses captured and imprisoned by the Japanese, the largest group of American women ever captured and imprisoned in wartime.

Director John Ford (then Captain Ford USNR on active duty) crafted a movie, with a screenplay by visionary Naval Aviator and Coronado legend, Frank “Spig” Wead (CDR USN Ret.), that tells a gripping story of honor, courage, and commitment, perhaps better than any other Navy themed film in Hollywood history. Ford’s unflinching dramatization of a disastrous military defeat examines the human and emotional costs of war and the impossibly difficult choices those who lead officers, sailors and, yes, even nurses, face in wartime. Starring Robert Montgomery, John Wayne and Donna Reed, this superb motion picture is a history lesson necessary and appropriate for all ages. It is a “must see” for all who have served our Navy and for all those whose loved ones who have served or are serving today in uniform.

The complete 2025 Student Classic schedule and reservations are available on the CIFF Website under the “Year-Round” dropdown tab. All Student Classic Film screenings are free.