The Purple Heart

The Purple Heart
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Lewis Milestone
Produced by	Darryl F. Zanuck
Written by	Jerome Cady
Based on	story by Darryl F. Zanuck (as Melville Crossman)
Starring	Dana Andrews Richard Conte Farley Granger Kevin O'Shea Don "Red" Barry Trudy Marshall
Music by	Alfred Newman
Cinematography	Arthur C. Miller
Edited by	Douglas Biggs
Production company	Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	March 8, 1944 (1944-03-08) (New York)
Running time	99 min
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$1,500,000

The Purple Heart is a 1944 American war film directed by Lewis Milestone. The film stars Dana Andrews, Richard Conte, Farley Granger, Don "Red" Barry and Trudy Marshall. Eighteen-year-old Farley Granger had a supporting role.

The Purple Heart is a dramatization of the "show trial" of a number of US airmen by the Japanese during World War II. The film is loosely based on the trial of eight airmen who took part in the April 18, 1942, Doolittle Raid. Three were executed and one died as a POW. This film was the first to deal directly with the treatment of POWs by the Japanese and ran into opposition from the US War Department which was afraid that such films would provoke reprisals from the Japanese.

In April 1942, after a raid on Japan, eight American aircrew made up of the crews from two North American B-25 Mitchell bombers, are captured. Capt. Harvey Ross (Dana Andrews), becomes the leader of the captives. Initially, the men are picked up by a local government official who is a Chinese collaborator in a Wang Jingwei controlled section of China. The Chinese official delivers the Americans to the Imperial Japanese Army to be put on trial at the Shanghai Police Headquarters. Although international observers and correspondents are allowed to witness the trial, the commanding officer, General Mitsubi (Richard Loo) refuses to allow Karl Kappel (Torben Meyer), the Swiss Consul to contact Washington.