This is far from the best WW2 Pacific Theatre movie but it'll do until "Letters From Iwo Jima", "Thin Red Line" or even "Naked And The Dead" come along. It reminds me of "Dead", actually, made ten years earlier, in its combination of brutal jungle combat with anti war philosophizing. It's not as good, though, mainly because Cornel Wilde is, to put it kindly, not as good a director as Raoul Walsh. Where Walsh is a master at combining and weaving action with character so that the film is constantly moving toward its inevitable, tragic conclusion (Walsh rarely provides happy endings), Wilde seems, periodically, to stop the flow and pacing to let his characters opine or recall or muse or whatever the hell they do to slow things down. The result is a herky jerky affair, quite effective in transmitting the horrors of island hopping warfare but, frankly, a bit of a bore, especially the banal voice overs and the even more cllche flashbacks to pre war life with the wife and kids (although I did enjoy Egan's stripper/floozie memories). And while it's commendable that Wilde gives us the domestic recollections of the Japanese soldiers as well as the Americans, it does not make them any the less hokey. Still, for all its faults, which include a rather crappy performance from the guy playing Egan (basically a bad L. Q. Jones imitation) and merely ok turns from Wilde and Patrick Wolfe, as the sensitive soldier, you do feel as if you are on that hellish island with the benighted combatants and that is not an inconsiderable thing. B minus.
PS...Finest performance, by far, is Rip Torn's homicidal sergeant. Much better than Aldo Ray's similar character in "Dead". Wish that the scenarists and Wilde had used him more and soft peddled Egan and Cliff.
PS...Finest performance, by far, is Rip Torn's homicidal sergeant. Much better than Aldo Ray's similar character in "Dead". Wish that the scenarists and Wilde had used him more and soft peddled Egan and Cliff.