The memoirs of the real Gwen Terasaki serve as the basis for Bridge To The Sun. Carroll Baker and James Shigeta would have troubles enough in an interracial marriage in the Thirties in America, especially Baker who was from Johnson City, Tennessee. But as America and Japan edge closer and finally go to war, this star-crossed couple has to make some choices that not too many others have to face.But Baker and Shigeta are soul-mates and that fact is what keeps them together despite the upbringings of both. For Baker she's a southern girl born and bred. She has an easier time of overcoming that than Ensign Nellie Forbush in South Pacific, but it's there.As for Shigeta he's a Japanese diplomat who thinks the militarists are leading his country down the wrong path. But he's also traditional Japanese who believes that the woman is most inferior. There's a great scene of dinner at their house in Japan where the women eat separately at their own table. Some political remarks are made and she commits the ultimate social sin of speaking up. That leads to a nasty quarrel. It reminds of the scene in Giant where Elizabeth Taylor speaks up in a political discussion to Rock Hudson's chauvinistic chagrin. Texans and Japanese have chauvinism much in common.Of course when war is finally declared Shigeta is shipped home and Baker takes their daughter and accompanies him. Her insights into the Japanese home front are the best part of the film and her life story.It's not true that Gwen Teresaki took their daughter back to America much less Tennessee. She would know better than to take a mixed racial child anywhere in Dixie. 'Terry' Teresaki did die young and Gwen enjoyed a long widowhood in life not dying until 1990. But not within a year of their departure. The real Teresaki became part of the Japanese new government under the occupation and he died in 1951 just before the occupation ended.Bridge To The Sun should have been done in color, but I'm supposing that was to allow that black and white newsreel footage to be integrated into the story. Baker and Shigeta are fine in the leads and the story is an eternal that while love can be on a rocky road, it finds a way if it's real.

Carol Baker and James Shigata are good highly capable performers, but they tended to peak early in the 1950s and 1960s. However, they both did very well in telling this true story about Gwen, an American from Tennessee, met, fell in love with, and married "Teri" a Japanese diplomat in Washington, and how the events of 1935 to 1945 made their lives together extremely difficult if not dangerous. For the events leading to the Great Pacific War between Japan and the U.S. made Gwen's insistence on staying with Teri and their daughter Mako (two young girls play Mako as she grows to be nine years old) lead to one problem after another.This film was produced in 1961, and it was made just at the moment when American audiences began being willing to make some extended effort at burying the hatchet with Japan. In the 1950s, thanks to Douglas MacArthur's work as our "proconsul" rebuilding Japan, the country retained it's imperial family (even Hirohito) and yet became a fairly reliable ally and democracy. It helped that in this period China (formerly the tragic victim of Japanese militarism) was now (except for Formosa) a bastion of Communism. The films of this period did show negatives in part (Sessue Hayakawa's Col. Saito in "The Bridge On The River Kwai" at first), but also showed the pressures on our old enemies. Hayakawa's Saito loses face to his prisoner Nicholson who is better organized in engineering the bridge than the Japanese Colonel is. Other films dealt with re-understanding Japan. There was "Sayonara", where Marlon Brando, Red Buttons, and Myoshi Umeki try to sexually bridge the divide of East and West, with tragic results. There was the kids travelogue - adventure film "Escapade In Japan", wherein American and Japanese kids pal around the country. There was also the film "A Majority Of One", wherein middle aged Roselind Russell and Japanese industrialist Alec Guiness find a romance despite her children's opposition. Also despite some past history (her son died at Pearl Harbor, his wife and children at Hiroshima). There was also the French film "Hiroshima Mon Amour" which was about an inter-racial love affair, but looked at the long range effects of the radiation in the bombed city. It was a good moment to reevaluate the past. The period probably lasted until 1970 when "Tora, Tora, Tora" properly and somberly presented the story of the attack of December 1941 from both sides.To me "Bridge To The Sun" is a natural follow-up of Jimmy Cagney's "Blood On The Sun". Although the Japanese were mostly villains and sneaks in Cagney's film (especially the politician Baron Tanaka - John Emory) Cagney was willing to show there were good Japanese, in particular an elderly Japanese aristocrat seeking to prevent the success of the militarists (and who is murdered by them). That happened to be true regarding the politics of Japan in the 1930s. Several leading politicians who seemed too peaceful or not patriotic were killed off by assassins (most of whom got slap on the wrist punishments). Shigata's Teri happens to be of the peace party, and as the film continues one sees he is fighting an impossibly well organized foe. The best moment that shows this is in a portion of the film dealing with November - December 1941. Shigata tries to get a missionary friend to speak to FDR to send a personal message to the Emperor to keep Japan and the U.S. at peace. Instead, we see that despite all attempts to be careful, Shigata and his fellow peace lovers are being observed by the militarists. The story of the mixed marriage is fascinating because both Americans and Japanese stigmatize the couple. While going to the train with Mako to be reunited with Teri, Gwen sees American racism and hatred at it's worse ("how dare she marry one of those people!"). Similarly Teri is bothered in Japan by military bullyboys, and Mako is crying when she is teased and hit by Japanese children and even her teacher. Yet by the time the film ends, Mako has become so identified with her father's people she hates the Americans as invaders. "Bridge To The Sun" may be the best Hollywood film to show the home front in Japan in the war. It is disheartening. While America and Britain went into rationing in the war, they never went as far as Japan did where a little rice was given to the Japanese people for most of their stamps. Actually even Germany was being less hard for awhile. According to Albert Speer, luxury items were being produced in Hitler's Reich up to late 1944. Not Japan - every available crumb went into the military's stomachs.The film follows Teri's continued attempts to rebuild the peace party, which only gets him into serious trouble with his oldest friend Hara (James Yagi, who gives a good performance of a committed militarist who won't let old friendships keep him from his work). But Teri won't give up, despite Hara and the Kamentai. And Gwen remains loyal to her husband, up to the film's end...which is quite unexpectedly poignant.

Actress Carroll Baker never really carved out a niche for herself in Hollywood; a devout Method player, the roles she chose didn't always showcase a woman with any particular range. She's quite good here however, playing real-life American Gwen Terasaki who, while visiting Washington, D.C. from Tennessee, met and fell in love with a Japanese politician. Before you can say 'Sayonara!', Gwen is married and living in Japan, where the customs are confusing and the second World War looms ahead. Opens with a sweet, believable romance, becomes compelling drama of emotional choices. James Shigeta is terrific as Gwen's husband and the production is handsome. *** from ****

This is the true story of Gwen Terasaki who married a Japanese diplomat before World War Two and then returned with him to Japan after Pearl Harbor. It tells the story of the war from an entirely new perspective, and is the first film to depict the racial nature of the Pacific war, and to depict the suffering of the common Japanese people.