This Bloody Blundering Business

This Bloody Blundering Business is a half-hour documentary film released in 1971. It examines the American occupation of the Philippines, following the Spanish–American War. The film is characterized by its ragtime music combined with dramatically understated revelations of the attitudes of the Americans towards the native Filipinos. According to the film, the Americans came to the Philippines for one reason: to civilize the people. William McKinley's Benevolent assimilation was, he said, a way to educate and civilize their "little brown brothers", the Filipinos, and leave the country once it is ready to handle its own government. The movie shows that the arrival of the Americans was intended to be peaceful, however, under many circumstances, it became savage and barbaric. Peter Davis, born in 1933, is a British-Canadian film director and producer whose films include, among many others, South Africa: the White Laager, a history of Afrikaner nationalism, Remember Mandela, which was...