Three Came Home (1950)

Claudette Colbert: Agnes Newton Keith

Photos 

Quotes 

• [first lines] 

  Agnes Newton Keith : Six-degrees north of the Equator, in the heart of the East Indies, lies Sandakan, the tiny capital of British North Borneo. In Sandakan in 1941, there were 15 thousand Asiatics, 79 Europeans, and 1 American. I was the American. My name is Agnes Keith. I was born in Oak Park, Illinois, and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. My husband is Harry Keith, a colonial official of British North Borneo. Borneo became my home when Harry and I were married. And it was in Sandakan that I bore one child, and lost another. And it was in Sandakan that we waited - 45 white men, 24 wives, and 11 children - through the anxious days of 1940 and '41. Certain only of one thing: that sooner or later, Japanese guns would join in the thunders of war, and Japanese troops would come down through the East Indies. The men waited because it was their duty; the women because it was their choice.

• Agnes Newton Keith : Trying to corrupt him again, are you?

  Dr. Bandy : Not in the least. The boy's got to learn to protect himself against women.

• Betty Sommers : [Japanese Sgt. enters]  Well, if it isn't old frog face.

  Agnes Newton Keith : Betty?

  Betty Sommers : Oh, that's right, you haven't met this one yet. The Sgt. doesn't understand one word of English. Do you, repulsive?

• Agnes Newton Keith : [voiceover]  This was Berhala island, where for 9 months the white women and children of Sandakan were grounded in filth and hunger and degradation that were to be there's throughout their imprisonment under the Japanese.

• Lieutenant Nakata : You invite soldier. You say hello. You say come here.

  Agnes Newton Keith : No, I didn't! I never saw him until he grabbed me.

  Lieutenant Nakata : You lie. Japanese not like white women. You invite soldier.

  Agnes Newton Keith : I'm not a young girl, Lieutenant, and I'm not flirtatious.

  Lieutenant Nakata : Flirtatious?