SANDS OF IWO JIMA Movie Review

1949 Allan Dwan

“Saddle Up!”

With that refrain, John Wayne solidifies the image that made him a star. He's Sgt. John Stryker, the toughest Leatherneck there ever was and, at the same time, fully believable, flawed, and sympathetic. He had played variations on the character in many of the films he made during the war, but here, for the first time, all of the pieces fit together perfectly. Solid fact-based story, capable ensemble cast, confident direction, and, at the center, Wayne in his first Academy Award—nominated performance. The combination is so effective that to many fans, Sands of Iwo Jima is the definitive war movie. That is an exaggeration, but it certainly is one of the best of its kind.

Cpl. Dunne (Arthur Franz), our narrator, explains that his rifle squad first saw action on Guadalcanal. Only he, Pfc. Bass (James Brown), and Sgt. Stryker have come through for retraining in New Zealand, where they meet the new replacements, fresh from stateside. Among them are Cpl. Thomas (Forrest Tucker), who has a history with Stryker, the battling Flynn boys (Richard Jaeckel and William Murphy) from the City of Brotherly Love, and Pfc. Conway (John Agar). Conway is the son of Stryker's old commanding officer. His hatred toward his father matches Stryker's admiration. During a long training sequence, Conway is swept up in a whirlwind romance with a local (Adele Mara), and Stryker's troubled domestic situation is revealed.

The squad receives its baptism on Tarawa against “Japanese Marines, the best they've got. They're dug in and they're mean and they'd just as soon die as stick a nickel in a jukebox.” In that engagement, director Allan Dwan establishes his ground rules for describing combat. Mixing actual combat footage with shots of his actors, he keeps the focus fairly narrow. For the most part, he stays with the squad, not letting the audience know any more than the men do, and he cares more about their reactions to the fight and to each other than about the battle itself. The archival footage is rough, but Dwan never dwells on violence. It tends to be quick and lethal. The levels of intensity may not equal what audiences have come to expect from Platoon and Saving Private Ryan, but the intention and emotion are the same.

The rest of the film follows that pattern of relatively quiet training sequences, where the personal side of the men's lives is revealed, followed by more combat. One long scene between Stryker and a woman who picks him up in a bar threatens to dissolve into complete sappiness, but Wayne's gruff sentimentality somehow saves it. His continuing conflict with Conway is less successful. From beginning to end, it is forced, false, and predictable. In context, though, that is relatively unimportant. Audiences loved this movie when it came out; it was one of the top boxoffice hits of 1950 and made John Wayne the number-one star in the country for the first time in his long career. They still love it, and rightly so.

John Wayne did have better, more complex roles—The Shootist, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, True Grit, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon—but he may never have been as comfortable as he was with Sgt. Stryker. Though Wayne never served in the military, to most of us the real man and the fictional character are the same. That's what movies and movie stars are about.

Cast: John Wayne (Sgt. John M. Stryker), Forrest Tucker (Cpl. Al Thomas), John Agar (Pfc. Peter Conway), Richard Jaeckel (Pfc. Frank Flynn), Adele Mara (Allison Bromley), Wally Cassell (Pfc. Benny Regazzi), James Brown (Pfc. Charlie Bass), Richard Webb (Pfc. Dan Shipley), Arthur Franz (Cpl. Robert Dunne), Julie Bishop (Mary), William Murphy (Pfc. Eddie Flynn), George Tyne (Pfc. Harris), Hal Baylor (Pvt. “Ski” Choynski), John McGuire (Capt. Joyce), Martin Milner (Pvt. Mike McHugh), William Self (Pvt. L.D. Fowler Jr.), Peter Coe (Pfc. Georgie Hellenopolis), I. Stanford Jolley (Forrestal), Col. D.M. Shoup (Himself), Lt. Col. H.P. Crowe (Himself), Capt. Harold G. Shrier (Himself), Rene A. Gagnon (Himself), Ira H. Hayes (Himself), John H. Bradley (Himself); Written by: Harry Brown, James Edward Grant; Cinematography by: Reggie Lanning; Music by: Victor Young. Producer: Herbert J. Yates, Edmund Grainger, Republic. Awards: Nominations: Academy Awards '49: Best Actor (Wayne), Best Film Editing, Best Sound, Best Story. Running Time: 109 minutes. Format: VHS, LV, Closed Caption, DVD.