Directed by John Farrow
Written by W. R. Burnett and Frank Butler
1942/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing/Universal Studios DVD
Maj. Geoffrey Caton: Boys, the honeymoon’s over. From now on you’re marines.
Why, if Wake Island is the first “action” WWII movie, does it feel like such a cliche? Maybe this is where these cliches started?
The film began production before the December 1941 battle for Wake Island was over and is a highly dramatized account of the Marines defense of the U.S. garrison on the island beginning on the day Pearl Harbor was attacked.
The story begins as Major Geoffrey Caton (Brian Donlevy) is arriving to take command of the sleepy outpost. From the beginning, he clashes with crusty Shad McClosky (Albert Dekker) who is arriving to supervise the civilian construction crew on the island. At the same time we get the back stories of several of the Marines including cutup “Smacksie” Randall (William Bendix) who is being discharged and shipping home to marry his sweetheart and pilot Lt. Bruce Cameron (Macdonald Carey) whose wife is working at Pearl Harbor.
All the kidding around and squabbling stops when the Japanese attack the island. Although they are vastly outnumbered, the Marines fight on to the last man, inflicting serious damage on the enemy. With Robert Preston as a Marine private.
Although the film implies that there were no survivors, the garrison surrendered after the first wave of attacks. The Marines were sent to POW camps in Japan but the construction crew remained on the island as forced labor to build up defenses for the Japanese. Ninety-nine of these civilians were massacred when the Japanese expected an Allied attack to retake the atoll. The commander that ordered the murders was later executed as a war criminal.
This was my first viewing but I certainly felt like I had seen this before. It has all the usual Hollywood combat picture tropes excepting a multi-ethnic platoon which I imagine emerges soon enough. The combat scenes are good, though
Wake Island was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Picture; Best Director; Best Supporting Actor (William Bendix); and Best Writing, Original Screenplay.
My father was a Marine on Wake Island, maned a 30 cal. water cooled machine gun. This movie made him sick the first time he watched it because it was crap. Whenever it came on the tv (turner classic movies or some other channel) he would find something else to do with his time. Very little in this movie is accurate, it is 99% guess work as there was nobody with any credability to give an eye wittness story to what went on in the days before the invasion and during the invasion. Since this was the first time you watched the movie I hope it will be the last as you surely have better things to do with your time. Thanks for letting me post. Sorry about some of the spelling. Schu
Was your father also taken as a POW or did he somehow get off of the island? Such a sad true life story. Don’t worry. This is not one of those movies I am likely to watch again.
I hate when films that tell important historical heritage are marked as propaganda. The very concept of men not giving an inch for freedom, of choosing to stay and fight, of hopeless odds, is repeated throughout our history starting, I think, at Bunker Hill, then New Orleans, The Alamo and others. Your problem is, you call this a trope — and maybe Hollywood does give the soldiers a cheery tone but that is standard to develop a greater feel for the tragedy. After all, the audience only has forty minutes to get to know these guys before the plastering begins. The lying Japanese ambassador is no trope; he was real. The battle scenes were no trope; John Ford was actually briefly on the scene and we can see in his clips that this film is not far off the mark. The build up to the battle in this film is terrific. So I’d say with all due respect that there are “tropes” and there are movies that invented the tropes. They are not the same; this is an original telling of the important facts. Thanks so much for the look at it and your opinions, which are valuable.