User Reviews

I am generally not a fan of war films, but "Beachhead" is a more personal kind of war film, in which a small group of people take a journey that challenges not only their bodies, but their priorities and their values as well. The director, Stuart Heisler, maintains fairly consistent tension; an opening scene, where a man is blown up in an explosion as the title appears on the screen, is quite graphic for 1954. A young, pumped-up Tony Curtis holds it together with a strong, physical performance, and he is well-supported by Frank Lovejoy and the most appealing Mary Murphy. She is also game for the physical scenes, even if her character cannot escape the cliché of the woman who sprains her ankle and then has to be carried along. Filmed on location in Kauai - which is another plus. *** out of 4.

One of the most incoherent-scened plot-device war movies I've seen, 1950s era or otherwise. The other reviewer nails it when he refers to continual angry exchanges without apparent cause or resolution. Why does Curtis take the attitude he does and act as he does with the "French" girl ..no cause, but eventual resolution when they make out I guess. How and why the continual futile interpersonal with the sergeant , apart from this continual enigmatic reference to Guadalcanal, likewise, no cause or purpose just keeps breaking out counter-productively with monotonous repetition. Action scene after action scene is preposterous or just puzzling and bizarre in their proposition...the knocking out of the Japanese tank where attacking American soldier is dragged inside the tank ...the strange drawn -out 'we need three bodies' scene in the exposed foxhole ...the whole thing with the booby-trapped Japanese radio-hut which must have been thought up by someone who had been chewing karva-laced beetle-nut. The bizarre perplexing end sequence involving the PT boats at the pier and the shelling Japanese destroyer and Curtis' bizarre frogman grenade attack on....... the wreckage of the PT boat. What the hell is even really being suggested there...he burns up the destroyer..which is hundreds or thousands of metres away btw... by igniting the spilled gasoline from the exploded PT boat???SMH.. Yes, the movie has a couple of things in its favour. Hence my two-star rating. Location and filming is ok, it looks nice , even though Hawaii is probably not fully accurate to the Solomons/Bougainville. We can forgive that. And the one-more strange scene involving the compliant servile Japanese prisoner..and big Melanesian islander with machete guy who is willing to trade his boat for possession of servile grovelling Japanese prisoner guy. This is so way out , and dark as well, that you have to award a star for some more Beetlenut creativity involved in thinking it up. -----

ASIDE :I actually wonder if grovelling Japanese POW guy may have inspired the 'Fuji" character in 1960s war-comedy series "McHale's Navy"?? He even wore an identical type of outfit. -------

I remember this movie because I saw it at Ten Mile River Boy Scout Camp about 1955-56 And I remember it because The Camp Master had made an announcement that they had a surprise for us that night.And of course all day long we wondered what it was.And of course we all came up with ideas that at the time seemed logical,but of course looking back seem funny now .And I remember it was a nice cool summer night and we sat down on the grass and then the movie started and it was Beachhead and starred actors who of course at the time I knew nothing about .And of course now I know that it was Tony Curtis,Frank Lovejoy(an underrated actor who was always good no matter what he did Mary Murphy,Eduard Franz (another fine actor who always did a great job )Skip Homier (Who passed away earlier this year RIP Skip)john Doucette and an actor named Alan Wells .And to a bunch of boy scouts having a chance to see a movie like this was a great thrill.And of course for years I remembered the story but not the name until one night I saw it on TV and realized it was the movie I had seen so many years ago .And it was as good as I remembered it .And since its been reviewed so many times I decided not to review it But instead did it this way okay? 10/31/2017 2:28P.M.

Tony Curtis and Skip Homier both are wearing black with white trim canvas shoes in the scenes just before and after the swimming pond and the tank being blown up. Must have been too hard on the young stars feet.If the real Marines had been on the mission they would have been wearing boots. IN the first scenes they took off their leggin's just before starting out on their little trip to find the Farmer. When they went to the area where they dug the fox holes Tony and Skip are wearing combat boots, then later when Lovejoy and Curtis run into the Framer and his daughter Tony is wearing the "Tennis Shoes " but hey have been blacken. The movie in about a true story but did they really need the love interest??

This movie may be stupid at certain points, but it is never boring. I personally never tire of a well thrown hand grenade, and Frank Lovejoy tosses them with great skill in every other scene. Also, there's a nice twisted ankle moment featuring Mary Murphy. Not only does Mary severely injure her foot in an extremely painful manner while disembarking from a boat, but a true visual delight is seeing her drenched dress cling tightly to her shapely figure as she is assisted from the water. The twisted ankle is fortuitous for Tony Curtis in that he gets to help Mary hobble along across the beautiful Kua'i landscape. Before you know it, there's a little jungle love action going on between the two. How long their love will last is hard to tell because the corpsman at the end of the film seems pretty eager to move in on Tony's action, and as everyone knows, all's fair in love and war.

SPOILER: Description of a combat scene.

There are many reviews of BEACHHEAD so I won't post one. It's fairly entertaining if you are into war movies and even if BEACHHEAD is fairly straightforward along a well-used formula.

The best scene in the movie will interest those involved with the Asian martial arts. Late in the movie, the intrepid, old-timer Marine sergeant stays behind to ensnare the relentless Japanese commando sniper, who looks like an Asian version of Rambo, shirtless, clad only in shorts, carrying an Arisaka rifle with sniper scope, and a belt with minimal supplies and a knife.

The cunning Marine sergeant pretends to be shot by the Japanese sniper and plays dead, intending to knife the unsuspecting sniper as he approaches to inspect his latest target. The ploy works, almost. The sergeant had no idea the sniper would be quick on his feet and naturally well-versed in hand-to-hand combat. The next plays out best as the two men grapple in deadly combatives. In fact, the Japanese seems to have the initial edge. He successfully employs two jujutsu/judo throws on the Marine sergeant, who is not injured, although in real life he would have been, and gets back on his feet. He blocks an 'atemi' knife/sword hand blow (edge of the hand) from the sniper which could have injured or killed him. The Marine sergeant doesn't appear to know any official hand-to-hand combat training but uses his own strength, born of desperation, and simple street fighting and grappling to eventually overcome the Japanese sniper. It was curious because the film clearly showed the Japanese sniper having superior hand-to-hand combat training.

It will be more ironic to know that much of Western military hand-to-hand combat during WW2 and ever since then is based on Japanese jujutsu and combat judo. At the end of the 19th century and into the first two decades of the 20th century, Japan actively exported judo and jujutsu to the West as a demonstration of Japanese culture. Unlike the Chinese who jealously guarded kung fu (wu shu) knowledge from foreigners, the Japanese enthusiastically showed the majority of their hand-to-hand combat arts to foreigners, all except for closely guarded family-only taught advanced secrets of jujutsu ryu. Old books from this time period show the Japanese demonstrating jujutsu and judo with Westerners. Combat jujutsu and combat judo formed the core discipline of the Allied nations' military hand-to-hand combatives. It came about not quite directly. A British detective in Shanghai, Fairbairn, developed his own hand-to-hand combatives for the Shanghai police force, known as, DEFENDU, which he based upon his own extensive study of Japanese jujutsu, Western boxing and wrestling moves. At the start of World War 2, Fairbairn returned to England and helped organize the hand-to-hand combat regimen to the British Commandos. The Americans sent instructors to England to learn this style of deadly hand-to-hand combat. Thus the Japanese of WW2 found themselves fighting American, British, and Australian soldiers with jujutsu-influenced combat training. This was irony at its finest.

Many nations including the U.S. teach advanced hand-to-hand combat training that have its roots in WW2. Investigate those roots and all of it leads back to Japanese jujutsu and combat judo. There exists today on Amazon, copies of a 1944 book co-authored by an American man and a Japanese man, both black belts in judo. Since the year 1944 was the height of WW2, the authors oriented the book towards practical self-defense. Interesting, in contrast with post-war judo and its near total emphasis on sport, the book includes a chapter on 'atemi', blows and strikes with the hands, feet, and even head, against listed targets on a human anatomy diagram. This was actually a significant part of Jigoro Kano's early years on his newly-found judo. But time went by, the teaching of atemi became restricted to the black belt ranks and remains so today. The extensive depiction of atemi in that 1944 book would be clearly prohibited under Kodokan Judo today.

This decent World War II action drama stars Tony Curtis at his most handsome, on loan from Universal to independent producer Aubrey Schenck, and thus able to tone down his New York accent and escape from the clichéd, silliness of those programmers. He's on a rescue mission in the Northern Solomon Islands (shot on location in Hawaii) with Mary Murphy and Frank Lovejoy, and determined to complete what he's there for while trying to avoid being killed by the Japanese.

Lots of gunfire and bombs going off, on land and on sea, with some great adventure as this group not only strives to remain safe from the enemy but natural obstacles as well. I give this high marks for the technical achievements of the film, looking pretty realistic with only subtle hints of blue screen filming. This has a pretty decent screenplay that allows the viewer to really get to know these characters and root for them, and Murphy, best known as the daughter in "The Desperate Hours", does a good job in showing the bravery of her character. Skip Homeier and Eduard Franz are good in smaller roles. Starts off predictable and cliched and just gets better.

I give it 5 Stars because it's too bad to be really good, yet so bad it is. Too many things to mention, so I'll hit some of the stand outs. Production, Direction, Writing, Acting, Sound & Effects are all bad, but the location looks great! See how many thing you can find wrong with this picture. No wasting a shot because a cloud went over. Or because the acting was bad, or a scene looks like it was lit with a flashlight. The wind may be blowing like crazy in a scene, but you'll hear nothing but bad dialog and the occasional bird chirp. And isn't it amazing that only a gunshot saves Tony Curtis from walking on the booby-trapped step on the radio shack, but he can miss it and successfully lure the enemy soldiers in without being told which step it is. That a an a few other things like stopping in the middle of the mission to make out with the missionary's daughter make this one of those So-Bad-It's-Good Movies. Yes, "Yondda lies the castle of my Fodda." is the quintessentially bad Tony Curtis line, but you'll find plenty of lines in this film to rival it.

1943. Four marines are assigned a dangerous mission in which they must confirm the authenticity of a warning message about an impending Japanese invasion on a tropical island. Director Stuart Heisler relates the gripping story at a snappy pace, maintains a pretty gritty tone for a 50's film (for example, one unfortunate soldier gets pulled into a tank that he just dropped a grenade into), crafts a strong sense of urgency, and handles the thrilling combat scenes in a lively and competent manner. The compact script by Richard Alan Simmons offers a stark presentation of the brutality and unfairness of war. The sturdy acting by the able cast holds this picture together: Tony Curtis as sarcastic smartaleck Burke, Frank Lovejoy as the hard-nosed Sergeant Fletcher, Edward Franz as helpful French missionary Bouchard, Mary Murphy as Bouchard's fetching daughter Nina, Skip Homeier as the cowardly Reynolds, and John Doucette as the gruff Major Scott. The robust music by Arthur Lange and Emil Newman does the rousing trick. Gordon Avil's vibrant color cinematography nicely captures the lush beauty of the jungle setting. Worth a watch.

It had been decades since I saw this movie. I remembered a few good scenes which made me want to watch this again. How disappointing! This movie is almost laughable at times. For example, they are in a boat in the middle of a large river. But as a marine, the character played by Tony Curtis does not know to stick to the side of a river, near land, where they could hide quickly. And so, they are spotted by an enemy patrol boat. In another scene, the two marines and the planter with his daughter are standing in the wide open arguing. They hide only after the planter is shot by a sniper. In yet another scene, the three marines dig a foxhole out in the open, not concealed, where an enemy force coming out of the jungle obviously finds them and attacks. Throughout the movie, they are being chased by the enemy yet the marines find time to argue over a love interest. This is not a movie about the perils of war, but more of a drama where two guys vie over one girl.