Famous war film which, along with Red River, propelled John Wayne to the top rank of movie stardom. (He had been an important second-tier star since Stagecoach but didn’t make the box office top ten until 1948). Watching this made me reflect on Wayne’s appeal – although he plays a hard martinet, he never loses his sense of humour, and the smile is never far from his lips. I that is one of the reasons he was so popular for so long.
Wayne gives an excellent performance here as Sgt Stryker, who turns marine boys into men but who is also an alcoholic with a desperately unhappy home life. In later John Wayne films the conflict between Wayne and the other characters could get a bit tiring because you knew it was just a matter of time before they see things Wayne’s way – but every now and then you see a flaw in Stryker, which makes things a bit complex.
Also John Agar (who acquits himself well here) is allowed to make a few decent arguments against Wayne – that he wants his son to be raised intelligent rather than a military boofhead. He later apologises but it’s clear Agar doesn’t intend to be as neglectful as his own father was.
This film was made by Republic Studios, who specialised in B Westerns, but occasionally made more of an effort with the films of Wayne, who was their one big star. You can feel the extra effort – there are lots of cameos from real life heroes including the surviving Iwo Jima flag raising marines, plus newsreel footage.
I loved the foot note in the credits that this famous flag raising wasn’t technically the first American flag raised on Iwo Jima – off the top of my head I can’t think of any other film where the credits had footnotes.
Despite inevitable clichés (wacky comic relief soldiers, sweet faced yokels, good natured girls on shore leave), the film doesn’t paint a rosy picture of war – it’s a hard business where the enemy are good fighters (albeit referred to as “Nips” all the time) and decent men are killed, where seemingly small actions like stopping for a coffee lead to the death of your fellow soldiers and fighting sends you around the bend. Shame they had to have Wayne say “I never felt so good in my life” just before he was killed. And would all the soldiers sit around and have a chat afterwards with hostile Japanese about?
NB New Zealand viewers will enjoy the depiction of their native land in the first part of the film. Agar romances and marries a local Kiwi girl with a strong American accent, but there are few other locals.
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