Review of Sands of Iwo Jima

I've not seen every war movie ever made, nor have I seen every performance of John Wayne's, but I remain convinced that this is the best war movie ever made, and Wayne's best performance. Wayne is Stryker, John M., tough-talking Marine sergeant, in charge of a squad of men, and determined to keep them alive, which proves somewhat difficult as these Marines storm the beaches at Guadalcanal, Tarawa and Iwo Jima. Stryker is a man of intense personal longing, first, for his family at home, and then for the men he is charged with leading. And, what makes Sands memorable is we see this longing etched on the face of Wayne in every scene where he appears. This is not one of his B-western walkthroughs. It helps that the lines are so good. There are the usual clichés in any war movie, but the movie also rings true in many scenes. There is an especially poignant one between Stryker and a woman trying to raise an infant son alone. But, most of all, the battle scenes are believable. The famous flag-raising was not one of those scenes, however. This was pure Hollywood, though it was re-enacted by three of the men who did it for real: John Bradley, Rene Gagnon, and Ira Hayes. Two memorable scenes:

1) Two soldiers talking:

First: This is the poorest soil I've ever seen Second: That's war. First: What's war? Second: Trading real estate for men.

Worthless real estate at that.

2) The second scene is of a Jewish soldier who is fatally wounded, whose last words are, "Shema, Yisroel. Adonai elohenu adonai echad." This is part of Deuteronomy 6:4 in Hebrew, and memorable because Hollywood is not a place known for its expression of conventional religious spirituality ..