Release date: December 14, 1949, 109 minutes
Director: Allan Dwarn
Cast Includes:
Synopsis:
At Camp Packakariki, New Zealand, in 1943, a squad of US Marines that is to make World War II history on the island of Iwo Jima learn to be fighters - from seasoned campaigner, Sergeant John M. Stryker (John Wayne).
Stryker's ruthless training tactics put hate into the hearts of his men. He has the dislike of all of them, but Pfc. Peter Conway (John Agar) detests the sergeant even more than the others do. Stryker has served with Peter's father, Colonel Sam Conway, who was killed at Guadalcanal four months before. Since Peter has taken a psychological beating all of his life from his father, who considered him soft, he doesn't go for Stryker's extravagant praise of the colonel. And Stryker tries to dissuade him from marrying Allison Bromley (Adele Mara) whom he meets at a servicemen's club in Wellington. Peter rejects the advice. He receives permission to marry and has a short honeymoon before orders come to take off.
At Tarawa, the men Stryker has trained so thoroughly appreciate his fighting acumen. Up against Japan's best marines, Stryker and his leathernecks have to take an island that naval gunners and B-24's have been giving a workover for seventy-two days. Stryker risks his life to blow up a bunker full of Japs with a skilfully thrown satchel bomb.
In the course of the battle, one of Stryker's trainees, Handsome Dan Shipley (Richard Webb), is killed. Another, Choynski (Hal Fieberling), is hit by a sniper. And another, Hellenopolis (Peter Coe), dies when Corporal Thomas (Forrest Tucker), meeting an old marine pal, stops for some coffee, while Hellenopolis waits for the ammunition which Thomas brings too late.
Conway, still resentful toward Stryker, tries rebelliously to rescue Bass (James Brown), Stryker's only friend, when he is left wounded in the line of fire. In spite of Bass' piteous cries, Stryker, more concerned with taking the island than with individuals, refuses to allow Conway to take the risk.
Finally, Tarawa is taken. The squad has a short leave in Hawaii and there Stryker has a brief experience with a street woman (Julie Bishop) that reveals the cause of his bitterness. His wife had left him years before, refusing to allow him to see his young son. The interlude softens Stryker, makes him more human, and by the time the squadron goes to Iwo Jima, even Conway is aware of the change.
In the desperate battle - to take an island of volcanic rock and lava - Conway becomes the fighter his father always hoped he would be. With Ragazzi (Wally Cassell) and Conway, Stryker stages a three-way-play with a grenade that destroys the Japs' hold on the island.
The famous flag raising on Mt. Suribachi immortalises the capture of Iwo Jima by the US Marines. At the end of the battle, Stryker is shot by a Jap while smoking a cigarette. Conway kills the Jap, and now completely covered to his father's ideals, promises to name his son, recently born, after his famous father.
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