Movie Review

In the honor roll of American military commanders, the name of Gen. Douglas MacArthur stands high, if not, in the opinion of many, at the very top of the list. A brilliant, aggressive, dramatic, and resourceful officer, whose glowing career was marred by controversy and two devastating defeats, MacArthur evokes both praise and criticism. The vast literature about him ranges from fawning hagiography to sharp censure. General Douglas MacArthur, a documentary film in the A&E Biography series, charts a middle course, presenting a reasonably balanced view of the complex and conflicted life of this very complicated man.

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In the short span of less than fifty minutes, the film provides a generally effective overview of MacArthur's remarkable career, starting with his birth in 1880 at a small army post in Arkansas and continuing through an astounding series of dramatic events until his quiet death at Washington's Walter Reed Hospital at the age of eighty-four. It briefly covers the impressive and controversial career of his father, Gen. Arthur MacArthur, his own West Point education and early assignments in the Philippines and Far East, his bold and aggressive World War I battlefield leadership, his farsighted reforms as superintendent of the United States Military Academy, his duty as army chief of staff, including his suppression of the 1932 "bonus march," his subsequent efforts to create a Philippine army, his legendary role in World War II, his impressive management of the occupation of Japan, his brilliant yet flawed record in the Korean War, and his startling relief and retirement and the final years of his life.

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