Marines, Let’s Go! (1961)

Directed by Raoul Walsh. Tom Ryon, Tom Reese, David Hedison, Linda Hutchings, Barbara Stuart, William Tyler, Peter Miller, Rachel Romen, David Brandon, Fumiyo Fujimoto, Steve Baylor.

Drearily uninteresting and unbalanced armed service pic shows a trio of Marines on furlough in Japan right before the start of the Korean War. Though filmed in Cinemascope, the lads are hardly a colorful lot, just a bunch of boors who like to drink and cause trouble. Drab and clunky comedy scenes aren’t helped by weak acting and a poor script by John Twist (from a story by director/producer Walsh); when they finally get to fighting in the last twenty minutes, the combat scenes prove to be monotonous and unconvincing. There’s a little romance, too, but since that aspect is usually the flimsiest part of these kinds of genre time-killers, it goes without saying that they’re worthless here, too…though it does provide the most (unintentionally) entertaining part of the movie—Fujimoto’s goofy line readings. Walsh’s penultimate film; pretty disappointing considering what he had proven capable of in the past, and even worse than his last underwhelming war picture (The Naked and the Dead).

31/100