20th Century Fox were one of the last of the major studios to keep a large roster of in-house talent – this war movie seems to have been greenlit to primarily to showcase a bunch of their young spunks. (A number of Jerry Wald productions fell into this category.)
It’s about three young Marines from San Francisco on shore leave in 1944 – rich Bradford Dillman, poor-but-honest fisherman Jeffrey Hunter and poor-with-a-drunken-chip-on-his-shoulder Robert Wagner – and their women – rich bitch Diana Wynter, Eurasian France Nyuen, poor but honest Hope Lange and nice Sheree North. There’s a lot of melodramatic stuff and bad acting – Wagner and Dillman are particularly hopeless in their dramatic scenes, Wynter goes over the top.
They’ve modernised the story with some premarital sex and interracial romance but in many ways it’s the same old thing – Hunter marries Lange after knocking her up and they have one night together before shipping out; Wagner goes all cowardly in battle and Hunter has to slap sense into him; boozy Wynter kills herself; devoted pure Nuyen falls for Dillman after a couple of hours conversation; Dillman going “oh the humanity” after a Japanese soldier who just wants a drink is shot by US troops. I thought Dillman was a gonner with his Eurasian girlfriend, but actually it’s brave Hunter, with a wife and young child, the nicest character, who buys the farm. (They hint at a romance between Wagner and Lange at the end - is this supposed to make us feel better?)
Mainly of historical interest - or for fans of Robert Wagner and Jeffrey Hunter.
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