The film depicts the Battle of Inchon during the Korean War, which took place September 15â19, 1950 and is considered the turning point of the war.[2] The protagonist of the film is General Douglas MacArthur (Laurence Olivier), who led the United States surprise amphibious landing at Incheon in 1950. A subplot in the film involves an American couple who encounter difficulties in their relationship because of the ongoing war.
Inchon begins with North Korean soldiers moving past the 38th parallel north into South Korea in June 1950. People flee into the country's capital, Seoul. One of the displaced people is Barbara Hallsworth (Jacqueline Bisset), a U.S. Army major's wife who lives in a village on the 38th Parallel. She is chauffered to Seoul in a limousine, picking up five South Korean children along the way. After her chauffeur is killed, she drives them to a safe location called the Inn of the Sixth Happiness. Along the way, she shoots a North Korean soldier.
Meanwhile, her husband, Frank Hallsworth (Ben Gazzara), is attempting to break off an affair with a young South Korean woman (Karen Kahn). Her father (Toshiro Mifune) is aware of his daughter's affair with Hallsworth and does not disapprove. Hallsworth receives word of the invasion by the North Koreans, and he travels north in an attempt to locate his wife with the assistance of army sergeant August Henderson (Richard Roundtree). Henderson encounters Hallsworth's wife and fixes her vehicle's battery, and then reunites her with her husband.
Journalists David Feld Park (David Janssen) and Longfellow (Rex Reed) are attending a press conference held by MacArthur in Tokyo. MacArthur, however, does not show. He agrees with his wife (Dorothy James) that he is the only person who can rescue South Korea from the invasion by the North Koreans.
Hallsworth and his former lover succeed in turning on a lighthouse to signal 261 U.S. ships, and the South Korean woman's father activates mines in the channel. She dies during the ensuing battle. The U.S. troops drive out the North Korean forces and the cheering people wave South Korean and American flags. The film proper ends with MacArthur reciting the Lord's Prayer; after this scene, a newsreel of MacArthur is shown.
Who plays his wife?
Dorothy James