|
Thursday, March 18, 2004
Yap: Zamboanga
By Januar E.Yap
Meanwhile
There’s this song entitled “Monkeys Have No Tails in Zamboanga” that US soldiers assigned in Zamboanga sang during World War II. Lee Marvin sang it in a John Wayne-starred ‘70s film entitled “Donovan’s Reef” set about the same period the song achieved notoriety among American troops in Southern Philippines.
Surfing the net, I discovered that there are two books bearing the same title, one by Wolfe Reese, published in 1959 by Henry Regnery Company. The other one was published earlier in 1935, by a colonel, a certain S.P. Meek, who chronicled a US soldier’s wartime adventures in the Far East, obviously all the way to Zamboanga.
“Oh, the monkeys have no tails in Zamboanga. They were bitten off by whales,” goes the song, alluding to the natives who climbed up trees with simian skill to the amusement of American troops blushing in envy. Ron Shelton might as well shoot a sequel to “White Men Can’t Jump.” But let’s leave it at that for now.
You want to know how Western eyes saw us during those times, try to watch the 1936 film “Zamboanga,” Pelikula at Lipunan’s main feature in its Cebu stopover Friday and Saturday at SM Cinema. Starring Fernando Poe Sr. and Rosa del Rosario (if, at all, the names ring a bell to you), the film was directed by Eduardo de Castro under American producers, Eddie Tat and George Harris in 1936. After its New York release during that year, the film retreated to obscurity after bureaucracy and taxes robbed its producers of profit. Mowelfund director Nick de Ocampo found the 67-year-old film, “one of the hundreds made before the war,” at the US Library of Congress.
Pelikula at Lipunan, organized by the National Commission for Culture and Arts and the Mowelfund Film Institute, is not only Zamboanga. It also features short films and documentaries by Filipino independent filmmakers. You only have to pay P20 for a movie.
(e-mail: januariusmail@yahoo. com; text: 0927-4908875)
(March 18, 2004 issue)
Write letter to the editor. Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board. Click here. |
|
[return to top]
[home]
[network page]
|
LOCAL NEWS
BUSINESS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
FEATURE
SUPERBALITA
WEEKEND
|
