August 17 - Gung Ho!

This is a movie with a scene that happens today – August 17. I hope you will enjoy this film and watch it tonight.

GUNG HO!

The Marines ask for volunteers for a special combat unit. Many men volunteer. Tedrow has already killed someone with a knife. Harbison is seminary graduate who wants to join to be able to help the other men. Frankie is a no-good kid who wants to prove himself.  Col. Thorwald tells Transport that before Pearl Harbor he had joined the Chinese army on a fact finding mission. Two half-brothers Ritcher and O’Ryan want to join to show up each other. Pigiron wants to join to show he is worth something.  The men begin training. Richter and O’Ryan spend an evening with the girl they both love, Kathleen Corrigan. Later Richter meets Kathleen and asks her to wait for him, but they are interrupted by O’Ryan before he gets an answer. The Marines ship out from San Diego. At Pearl Harbor the 210 Maries in the battalion get on two submarines. They struggle to keep up morale in the sub, even celebrating Gunner’s birthday. The men learn they are landing on Makin Island and that as they are defending the Japanese will have a six to one advantage. However, all the Marines training has been focused on the specifics of this mission. They dive to avoid Japanese planes, but an exhausted Tedrow is left on deck. The sub recovers Tedrow and they get depth charged, but aren’t hit. On August 17, 1942 [46:20 to 1:25:35] they land on the island. They take out snipers in trees and then O’Ryan is killed. They take out a machine gun nest when Frankie races forward and tosses grenades. The  wounded Pigiron, who has been shot in the throat and can’t yell a warning saves the doc’s life by throwing a knife into the back of a wounded Japanese who revived and tried to shoot the doc. When Japanese aircraft appear the Marines attack the radio station controlling them, but are pinned down until the Marines use a captured steamroller to flatten the station. When the Japanese launch a major air raid, the Marines retreat, luring the Japanese troops to the hospital, where they have painted a large American flag on the roof. The Japanese bomb their own men. The Marines evacuate just in time to avoid Japanese destroyers. 

A decent action film. Made during the war it sometimes drifts over into propaganda. The combat sequences are well done and tries to create believable, real characters, instead of cardboard cut-outs.

2194 Days of War ed. by Cesare Salmaggi and Alfredo Pallavisini (Gallery Books, New York, 1977) at page 285 gives the date of the landing.

Producer - Walter Wanger

Director - Ray Enright

Screenplay - W. S. LeFrançois and Lucien Hubbard

Narrator - Chet Huntley

Runtime – 1 hour 28 minutes

Released - December 20, 1943

Starring –

Randolph Scott as Col. Thorwald

Alan Curtis as Pvt. John Harbison

Noah Beery Jr. as Cpl. Kurt Richter

J. Carrol Naish as Lt. C.J. Cristoforos

Sam Levene as Plt Sgt. Victor 'Transport' Magakian

David Bruce as Larry O'Ryan

Richard Lane as Capt. Dunphy

Walter Sande as Gunner McBride

Louis Jean Heydt as Lt. Roland Browning

Robert Mitchum as Pvt. 'Pig-Iron' Matthews

Rod Cameron as Pvt. Rube Tedrow

Grace McDonald as Lt. Kathleen Corrigan

Milburn Stone as Cmdr. Blake

Peter Coe as Pvt. Kozzarowski

Harold Landon as Pvt. Frankie Montana

Irving Bacon as Harry the Hamburger Man

Eddie Coke as Chief Clerk

Dudley Dickerson as Submarine Steward