646f9e108c In November 1941, Major Caton takes command of the small Marine garrison on Wake Island. His tendency toward spit and polish upsets the men&#39;s tropical lassitude, but Pearl Harbor changes everything. Soon the island is attacked and the Marines pull together day by day; but how long can they hold out? December, 1941. With no hope of relief or re-supply, a small band of United States Marines tries to keep the Japanese Navy from capturing their island base. This movie came out in the first year of the war, and I remember well seeing it at a Saturday matinée, and playing it out in our back yard, wearing a kid&#39;s version of a Marine &quot;tin hat.&quot; I&#39;ve watched it on video many times since. The movie begins well, and has good sub plots, some serious, some humorous. Donlevy is excellentthe Marine CO, and the whole cast – Robert Preston, William Bendix, Albert Dekker, Macdonald Carey et al. – turns in convincing performances. Director John Farrow, who saw combat in the Royal Navy at the beginning of WWII and was discharged because of wounds, develops the tension welloverwhelming Japanese forces attack the Island, to be repelled once, and then returning to overrun it in compelling combat sequences. Because it is of the era, it catches the flavor of the era perfectly, and anyone trying to do a movie about the U.S. in WWII should see it. I can only compare it to the wrong in far too many ways 2002 &quot;Pearl Harbor&quot; – messing up on details suchusing the &quot;Alpha/Bravo&quot; phonetic alphabet instead of the &quot;Able/Baker&quot; of WWII, getting manners and haircuts wrong and blowing up nests of more modern destroyers when the Japanese concentrated only on the battleships. Wake Island clearly has no such mistakes. That&#39;s actually a quote from the battle at Bunker Hill, but it is repeated here to make the point that fooling and surprising your enemy is often the best way to proceed in war. This is World War II, and practically the entire world gathered together to destroy three enemy nations.<br/><br/>A tiny island in the Pacific far from Hawaii, Wake Island is set up by the American military before the days of Pearl Harbor. They are ironically visited by a creepy looking Japanese diplomat who the audience knows from the very moment that he opens his mouth that he is lying through his teeth. Just days later, Pearl Harbor is attacked which shocks but prepares them for a strike.<br/><br/>Great battle scenes showed movie audiences what the boys were doing over there, although these soldiers are definitely all man. A cast of Paramount&#39;s top male contract players cone together in what really was the first great war movie dealing with combat.<br/><br/>Certainly made with the propaganda machine in mind, this lacks the clichés of later films, and therefore, it remains one of the most important movies made about the second World War. <br/><br/>Many of the actors became bigger stars much later, so therefore, it is difficult to recognize such familiar facesRobert Preston and Macdonald Carey unless you are searching for them. The stars are second priority, however,this is where the story is the star. Still, already popular character performers like Wiiam Bendix and Brian Donlevy do give unique characterizations. So raise your Memorial and Veterans Day flag, and enjoy a film that came out awfully fast after the war began but didn&#39;t cheat the viewer. It is superb.
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