FLYING LEATHERNECKS Movie Review

1951 Nicholas Ray

As the story goes, legendary Howard Hughes had the rights to some excellent Technicolor documentary footage of ground and air combat in the Pacific. After he bought controlling interest in the RKO Studio in 1948, he had a script written to build a story around the film he already owned. Flying Leathernecks is the somewhat disappointing result. The main problem is that director Nicholas Ray is never able to fully incorporate the archival film with his fiction. The air combat shots, apparently taken from nose cameras, are impressive, but they obviously have nothing to do with the inserts of grimacing pilots in model cockpits. In other words, Ray never really puts the viewer in the airplane the way the best flying films do. Nothing here comes close to The Blue Max or even Hughes's own Hell's Angels.

The ground-based conflicts are more interesting. In 1942, Maj. Daniel Xavier Kirby (John Wayne) takes over Marine Flying Squadron VMF247 on the eve of its departure for Guadalcanal. Executive officer Capt. Carl “Griff” Griffin (Robert Ryan) had hoped to be promoted into the job, but his previous boss had thought him too soft for the job. Soon, Kirby shares the opinion. As he sees the situation, Griffin cares too much about the pilots as individuals to enforce the discipline necessary for survival. For his part, Griffin thinks that Kirby is needlessly tough on the men, pushing them beyond their limits. Most fans don't need to know any more to predict the ending.

Most of the aerial action involves “close air support of ground troops” with fighter planes flying at treetop level strafing and bombing enemy troops while the Americans are only a few yards away. In the film's terminology, the “fly guys” are helping out the “mud Marines.” It's difficult work that threatens the ground forces with friendly fire, and the brass is not completely sold on the idea. Maj. Kirby means to persuade them, after a brief stateside visit with his wife Joan (Janis Carter) and young son (Gordon Gebert).

Throughout, the archival footage focuses on the destruction of Japanese ships and fortifications, and much of it is spectacular. But the dividing line between the new work and the old is never in doubt. Ray tells his part of the story in conventional early '50s style, never trying to emulate the handheld camera movement and grainy immediacy of the real combat film. Despite that glaring lapse, he still gets fine performances from his stars. Wayne's familiar roughhewn heroics play well against Ryan's angry intensity, even if everyone in the audience understands that they're going to wind up on the same side by the last reel. To be fair, war films were never Ray's forte; he was more comfortable with the darker shadings of Rebel Without a Cause and Johnny Guitar. That kind of complexity has no place in your basic John Wayne war movie and that's what Flying Leathernecks is.

Cast: John Wayne (Maj. Dan Kirby), Robert Ryan (Capt. Carl “Griff” Griffin), Janis Carter (Joan Kirby), Don Taylor (Lt. “Cowboy” Blithe), James Bell (Colonel), James Dobson (Pudge McCabe), Jay C. Flippen (M. Sgt. Clancy), Gordon Gebert (Tommy Kirby), William Harrigan (Lt. Cmdr. Curan), Brett King (Lt. Ernie Stark), Adam Williams (Lt. Malotke), Carleton Young (Capt. McAllister), Dick Wessel (Mess Sergeant), Gail Davis (Virginia Blithe), Harlan Warde (Admiral's Aide), Michael (Steve Flagg) St. Angel (Lt. Jorgensen), Maurice Jara (Shorty Vegay), John Mallory (Lt. Black), Britt Nelson (Lt. Tanner), Lynn Stalmaster (Lt. Castle); Written by: Kenneth Gamet, James Edward Grant; Cinematography by: William E. Snyder; Music by: Roy Webb. Producer: Edmund Grainger, RKO. Running Time: 102 minutes. Format: VHS, Beta, LV.