User Reviews

For 'Sands of Iwo Jima,' Wayne won his first Academy Award nomination in a role that presented him again as a ruthless leader of men, this time the toughest leatherneck, hated and then loved for his hardness:'In boot camp you learned the book. Out here, you gotta remember the book and learn a thousand things that have never been printed, probably never will be. You gotta learn and you gotta learn fast. And any man that doesn't want to cooperate, I'll make him wish he hadn't been born. Before I'm through with you, you're gonna move like one man and think like one man. If you don't, you're dead.'

Wayne plays Sergeant Stryker, a battle-hardened U.S. Marine training a company of raw recruits in New Zealand... He is merciless to his men... They are consistently kept on the go ('If you're nervous, count your toes. I'll do the masterminding around here.'), and they detest him...

The conflict focuses on Stryker and Private First Class Conway (John Agar) who in the end will assume Stryker's position...

At the Battle of Tarawa, one of the bloodiest fights of the whole Pacific campaign, director Allan Dwan establishes his ground rules for describing combat, mixing authentic combat footage with shots of his actors... The few casualties in Stryker's company justifies his methods, and the men begin to respect him...

Allan Dwan's 'Sands of Iwo Jima', anticipated the new vogue for action-packed war movies... His film is quite hypnotic in its flag-waving way...

I remember seeing this film as a child and wondering if combat looked as antiseptic as it does in Sands of Iwo Jima, then the Japanese soldiers dropped into a foxhole of Marines and started bayoneting them. The scene still frightens me, regardless of how many times I've seen Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers.

The great William Manchester wrote about being a Marine in the Pacific in his memoir Goodbye, Darkness. He talked about how phony the movie was, how John Wayne-ish and Hollywoodized it portrayed the sort of in-your-face combat he experienced. He and a friend were thrown out of a theater for laughing so hard at the histrionics and the clichés.

Yet, the average viewer would be hard-pressed not to feel for John Wayne's broken, alcoholic Marine non-com, and the squad he commands. The best moment of the film isn't the tragic, inevitable ending, but Wayne's discovery that his love interest is just as damaged and as hurt as he is.

With that in mind--and William Manchester notwithstanding--this is more than just a war movie, and that's why it's so good.

The problem I have with most war movies is that they usually get involved with too many side stories dealing with personal relationships, romance, or issues not related to the battle or conflict of the title. That would be the case for "Sands of Iwo Jima" as well, as John Wayne's hard boiled performance as Sergeant John Stryker is tested along the way by Privates Al Thomas (Forrest Tucker) and Peter Conway (John Agar). Granted, the scenarios allow us a glimpse into the mind and temperament of Stryker, and the reason for his attempts at solace in a bottle of whiskey. Stryker's one track mind does not allow for slip ups, because in battle, a slip up can cost lives. That point is demonstrated when Thomas delays bringing back ammo for his buddies during the Battle of Tarawa; his buddies wind up dead.

On the plus side, the battle scenes of the movie are interspersed with actual war footage, and though not seamless, they are effective. In particular, the flame throwing battle tanks are particularly impressive. There are some hand to hand combat scenes, brief but realistic, that give meaning to a Marine's definition of battle - "That's war boy, tradin' real estate for men". Put in that context, the futility of war as a means to an end seems especially true.

I always thought the term "Lock and Load!" was an overworked cliché in modern films, but here it is in a movie made in 1949. John Wayne does the honors, not once, but twice before the story is over. As for the march of time putting things into perspective, I got a chuckle out of a line uttered by the bar fly Mary (Julie Bishop) attempting to cozy up to Stryker - "Sixty five cents for a drink, too much!"

With one of the more famous outcomes in World War II history, I was looking forward to the climactic action of the U.S. flag being raised over Surabachi. That moment was recreated for the film while honoring three surviving members of the original battle who appear in the film with Wayne, in a patriotic scene enhanced by the strains of the Marine hymn in the background. Unfortunately, Stryker doesn't live to see victory. With new found admiration for his commanding officer, Private Conway offers his men encouragement to continue the fight when he shouts out - "Saddle Up!"

I can't think of a better movie to watch on Memorial Day. We see John Wayne at his best and we also see him die. Even the Duke is not indestructible.

Wayne played Sgt Stryker; a hard drinking, hard fighting Marine that did his duty. He may not have been popular, but he got his men to the top of a rock.

Clint Eastwood's version of this battle may be prettier, but to see the futility and dirt and grime of war, you really can't beat this film.

A great tribute to the Marines and to the Duke, who just turned 100 this weekend.

"Sands of Iwo Jima" is a patriotic war film of the type that was popular (in both America and Britain) in the years following the end of World War II. Although the war itself had been over for four years when it was made, by 1949 the Cold War had started, and the thought that America might soon be at war again may have been a factor in the popularity of films of this sort. It is notable that few patriotic war films were made in the immediate aftermath of World War I when it was widely, if erroneously, believed that the horrors of the trenches had made war a thing of the past; anti-war films were more popular during this period.

Like a number of such films it follows a group of fighting men- in this case a squad of United States Marines- through the war, typically starting with their training and ending with some heroic engagement in which the unit acquit themselves with distinction. The engagement in this case is the famous Battle of Iwo Jima of February/March 1945 in which American forces succeeded in seizing control of a Japanese-held island, albeit at the cost of heavy casualties. A photograph of US Marines raising the Stars and Stripes over the island became an icon of American patriotism; this event is recreated in the film making it a "flag-waving" movie in the most literal sense.

(The value of this victory has been doubted. It has been pointed out that Iwo Jima had little strategic value and that, given their overwhelming superiority in numbers and their complete control of the surrounding sea and air, it would have been virtually impossible for the Americans to have lost the battle. Needless to say, doubts of this nature are never raised in the film).

We first meet the squad during training in New Zealand, where they are being put through their paces by tough-but-fair Sergeant John Stryker. Not all the men, however, appreciate Stryker's rigorous training methods. He is especially disliked by two of them. Private Al Thomas, who has tangled with Stryker in the past, regards him as tough-but- unfair. Private Peter Conway, who has joined the Marines for the sake of family tradition rather than out of any genuine enthusiasm, loathes him for more complicated reasons. Conway's father, who has been killed earlier in the war, was himself an officer in the Marines. Stryker served under him and greatly admired him, but Conway junior despised his father, whom he saw as cold and unfeeling, and transfers his hatred to Stryker, whom he sees as a man of a similar stamp. Needless to say, both Thomas and Conway eventually prove themselves heroes when the squad go into battle.

A subplot deals with Conway's courtship of, and marriage to, Allison, a New Zealand girl. (At least, I presume Allison is a New Zealander, although Adele Mara plays her with an American accent). An attempt is made to give Stryker himself some sort of a back-story; we learn that he went through a traumatic divorce before the war and that he has become an alcoholic as a result. The scriptwriters, however, seem to regard his tendency to drink alcohol to excess as a mere personal foible which in no way detracts from his efficiency as a soldier. When his squad come across him dead drunk in the street they all- even those who dislike him- combine to hide him and protect him from the military police, never stopping to think whether a habitual drunkard is really the sort of man they want to lead them in combat.

Today the battle scenes would seem fairly feeble, not only in comparison with something like "Saving Private Ryan" but also in comparison with later war films from the sixties and seventies. In the late forties, however, they probably seemed effective enough and aroused greater tension than comparable films made during the war itself. The casting of John Wayne, who himself had never served in the armed forces and was considered a draft dodger by some, was controversial, but the film nevertheless brought him his first Academy Award nomination for "Best Actor in a Leading Role". Wayne had a limited range as an actor, but could be very good within that range, as he is here, making Stryker entirely credible as a man whom others would willingly follow into battle, despite his personal weaknesses. He lost out on "Best Actor", however, to Broderick Crawford as Governor Stark in "All the King's Men"; ironically this was a role which Wayne himself had been offered but refused.

"Sands of Iwo Jima" is a "Marmite Film" that will continue to divide opinion, even more than sixty years after it was made. Pacifists will doubtless hate it as a glorification of war. American patriots, especially those who share John Wayne's conservative politics, will love it as a celebration of heroism in a just cause. It is, however, overall a well-written, well-acted and generally well-made picture of men at war, if rather too gung-ho for my tastes. 7/10

Marine Sgt. John Stryker (John Wayne) is a tough-as-nails sergeant when drilling and disciplining his recruits, among them an educated college boy (John Agar), a hyper Italian kid who learns how to properly fold the U.S. flag, and a rival who was demoted because of Sgt. Stryker. This film, along with history itself, makes for good watching.

Through "Sands of Iwo Jima," we learn about the rough context of war; either kill or be killed. These young Marines, most probably right out of high school, were putting themselves into situations where they could be coming home in a body bag....and this film captures the bravery of these young men.

This movie should be watched once a year on Memorial Day or V-J Day to commemorate the sacrifice of these bold warriors.

John Wayne drawls his way through yet another war movie where thirty-something teenagers with clean shirts and Christian mouths storm battlegrounds where they die operatically from bullets that don't make exit wounds; powerful enough in its day to be regarded a "classic," *Sands of Iwo Jima* elevated Wayne from studio standard to worldwide megastar.

But it's kinda laughable now.

This Allan Dwan-directed film, exploiting the hot topic of the most reproduced photo of World War II (Joe Rosenthal's shot of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima), exhibits that same snide jingoism every American or British production fell victim to during that war-mongering epoch. In 2006, the public incessantly whines that 9-11 "entertainment media" is produced too close on the heels of the actual event, yet WWII movies were being churned out not only on the coattails of the war, but *during* the war itself. With no passage of time at all to lend any perspective, these movies could crush a foreigner's spine with their patriotic intensity.

Clean-cut American whitebread boys (with the odd Polack and Mick thrown in for begrudging realism), meeting soft-focus American blondes (from - er, New Zealand) and falling in love after one night of Puritan necking, to give them motivation to keep America free of races which don't look like Hitler Youth.

John Wayne is Sergeant Stryker, the tough-talking, hard-drinking, platoon leader who molds his thirty-something teenage misfits into a fighting unit proud and brave enough to storm a stock footage beach in the Pacific – even if it takes dirty dancing with one of them to do it; John Agar is the nancy-boy who melodramatically finds love and can't shutup about it; big Forrest Tucker, long before he makes an ass of himself on *F-Troop,* makes an ass of himself here as a hard-hitting ex-boxer and nemesis to Stryker; Richard Jaeckel, as always looking more Nazi Youth than Apple Pie, provides comic relief with an Aryan-looking brother of his, as does the token Polack guy with the annoying Brooklyn accent.

Focusing on Stryker's recruits long before Iwo Jima, the film's feature battle is actually on Tarawa, with Iwo Jima's skirmish seemingly an afterthought in the last few minutes of film. The flag-raising - that absurd little habit of murdering conquerors which inspired this movie's production - is given short shrift and then embarrassingly staged, with the Rosenthal Position dwelt upon just long enough to make anyone with an ounce of real patriotism feel dirty.

Not dwelt on enough are the cameos of the three surviving flag-raisers (Rene Gagnon, John "Doc" Bradley and Ira Hayes), who were elevated to hero status by a misguided nation and slopped onto this movie's celluloid for ticket-selling effect, yet who are bequeathed less than one-eyeblink's worth of screen time in the movie's final five minutes. So much for heroism.

Stock footage from Tarawa and Iwo Jima is jarringly intercut with Dwan's footage, and those studio sets that used to suffice for outdoor locations (with more than two shadows giving away the gag every time) just don't cut it in today's greenscreened and special-effected universe. Adding to the pain, some deliciously execrable performances by many of the one-liner supporting cast. And as for war authenticity or factuality, you would have been hard pressed to find *any* objective or truthful account of the war during 1949 on American soil. *Sands* - replete with conceptual, military and factual flaws - was as "true" as you were going to get in those days when bigotry was not only politically correct, but encouraged like a national pastime.