Bataan peninsula 1942. Sgt. Bill Dane (Robert Taylor) and his 12 men face hopeless odds as the enemy pushes toward its inevitable conquest of the Philippines. They are cut off from reinforcements, weakened by malaria, hugely outnumbered. And in this film, greatly remembered.

Unlike many war-era films, this stirring saga tempers its heroics with the hard reality of history. Dane's mission: hold a strategic bridge. The combat: fierce and unsparing. George Murphy, Thomas Mitchell, Lloyd Nolan, Robert Walker, Desi Arnaz, and more join Taylor in this salute to American and Philippine forces who, as the movie notes, "may have done more than we'll ever know to save this whole world."