The Mountain Road

The Mountain Road is a 1960 war film starring James Stewart and directed by Daniel Mann. Based on the 1958 novel of the same name by journalisthistorian Theodore H. White, the film follows the attempts of a U.S. Army Major to destroy bridges and roads potentially useful to the Japanese during World War II. Whites time covering China for Time magazine during the war led to an interview with former OSS Major Frank Gleason Jr., who served as head of a demolition crew that inspired the story and film. N Gleason was later hired as an uncredited technical consultant for the film.

In 1944, engineer Major Baldwin James Stewart is ordered to blow up an airfield as well as strategic roads and bridges to help American troops in China retreat from the Japanese army. General Loomis Alan Baxter is reluctant to send Baldwin due to his inexperience as a commander, but relents. Baldwin, accompanied by reluctant conscripts, Sergeant Michaelson Harry Morgan, Prince Mike Kellin, Lewis Eddie Firestone, Miller Rudy Bond and Collins Glenn Corbett, the demolition teams translator, Baldwin finds out from Colonel Li Leo Chen, the Chinese commander that the Japanese are about to capture a munitions dump. Colonel Kwan Frank Silvera is assigned to the team but before they can embark, Madame SueMei Hung Lisa Lu, the Americaneducated widow of a Chinese officer, joins them, with Baldwin gradually becoming attracted to the widow.Baldwin blows up a bridge and pushes a truck over a cliff to keep on pace, trying to reach the munitions dump before the Japanese. SueMei and Baldwin are at odds over his cavalier treatment of the Chinese when he resorts to blowing up a mountain road, leaving thousands of local Chinese residents homeless. After stopping at a village because Miller is ill, Collins tries to give out the surplus food the team has brought, but is trampled to death by starving villagers. Baldwin is furious and resolute in trying to complete his mission, finally successful in blowing up the munitions storage, but when one of his trucks is stolen by Chinese bandits, Miller and Lewis are also killed. Baldwin exacts revenge by rolling a gas barrel into the bandits outpost and setting the village on fire. Baldwin asks SueMei to understand why he had to act that way, but there is no reconciliation between them as the gulf of two divergent cultures is too great and she leaves him. Although recognizing his retribution was fundamentally excessive and brutal, Baldwin radios his report to headquarters, and is praised for fulfilling his mission. ........

Source: Wikipedia