Adequate but heavy-handed antiwar flick, perhaps most notable for being Frank Sinatra's one directorial credit. Plot has a planeload of US Marines, led by Clint Walker (in a performance of solid wood) and including Sinatra's cynical medic, crash-landing on a Japanese-held island late in WWII. At this late point in the war, the Japanese unit has become as isolated from their own supply lines as the Americans, and amid various misunderstandings and skirmishes an uneasy truce is formed. The Americans, however, are trying to establish radio contact to call in rescue, and eventually the business of war must be dealt with again...
While the story is somewhat schematic and cliched, Sinatra moves the action along competently. In the end, however, the film has little more to say than: "why can't we just get along?"
While the story is somewhat schematic and cliched, Sinatra moves the action along competently. In the end, however, the film has little more to say than: "why can't we just get along?"