And yet . . . overlooking that Jeffrey Hunter was the same age as Guy Gabaldon in 1960, and too old to play the eighteen year old war hero, and giving a pass to the fictionalization of Gabaldon's life, Hell to Eternity remains a moving, and sometimes heartbreaking film. Through Hunter, the film addresses the contradiction of the U.S. government specifically interning Japanese-Americans though not those of German or Italian descent, as well as the initial rejection of Japanese-Americans in the military. Gabaldon is presented as a person who, if not in some kind of conflict with others, is conflicted within, an outsider who finds himself identifying not only with the Japanese family that adopted him, but with by extension, the Japanese. On the battlefields of Saipan, Gabaldon identification with his military family is such that he becomes a virtual killing machine after witnessing the murder of a Marine Corps buddy played by David Janssen. In a scene in Hawaii, where there was no internment of the Japanese, Hunter ends up with a caucasian reporter portrayed by Patricia Owens, while Janssen and Vic Damone are with two Japanese women. If Gabaldon is not battling his darker impulses or other men, he is depicted here in a battle of the sexes, conquering the unattainable white woman. Karlson cuts directly from a shot of Hunter and Owens in embrace to footage of naval cannons blasting away, as if to say love, as well as life, is a battlefield.

What the real Guy Gabaldon may have seen in Jeffrey Hunter's performance that struck him as true was the intensity that Hunter projects, the flashes of rage provoked from witnessing discrimination or the death of his best friend in the Corps. Sessue Hayakawa brings his considerable dignity to the role of the Japanese general who commits ritual suicide in front of his troops after ordering them to surrender. Hayakawa's wife, silent star Tsuru Aoki made her last film appearance as the woman Gabaldon called "Mama-san". There is a bit of coincidence that approximately five years after they appeared together in Hell to Eternity, Jeffrey Hunter starred in the pilot episode of "Star Trek", while George Takei, who played his "brother" George, went on to co-star in the series. They is much to admire about Hell to Eternity, but there is still room for the true story of Guy Gabaldon to be told.