Sands of Iwo Jima (1949)

Directed by Allan Dwan. Starring John Wayne, John Agar, Forrest Tucker, Wally Cassell, Richard Webb, James Brown, Arthur Franz, Richard Jaeckel, William Murphy, Adele Mara, James Holden, Peter Coe, Julie Bishop.

Copied and improved upon numerous times in the decades that followed, this WWII chronicle of a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears U.S. Marine recruits getting whipped into shape during basic training and experiencing combat in the Pacific was quite popular in its day, but is so hokey and outdated today, it’s easier to pick out all the problems plaguing the final cut. No one in the squad can stand their stern, tough-as-nails sergeant (Wayne), but what are the chances his cold-hearted approach does the trick in preparing the youngsters for the grueling pressures of war? Downtime/romance scenes are ineffective, but at least they get shuffled to the sidelines quickly; the training sequences are old hat but diverting; the combat scenes are shaky in their efforts to combine real wartime action footage with material all-too-obviously staged on a set (the differences are so night-and-day, the filmmakers might as well have been switching back and forth between color and black & white film stocks). The biggest problem is how two-dimensional all the character archetypes are, without fascinating personalities or larger-than-life heroics to compensate—yes, the Duke earned his first Oscar nomination for his role, but it’s a pretty standard performance for him, and he gets shafted by an exit from the picture at the end that had me laughing out loud at how ineptly it was set up and executed. Those who first saw it many, many years ago (or those who haven’t seen many war pictures to begin with) are likely to rate this one much higher. The three surviving flag raisers from the famous Iwo Jima photograph make cameo appearances during the fictionalized onscreen version of the event.

48/100