Okinawa

I was in the navy during the vietnam war. I was deployed to vietnam twice and served on several different navy ships. The characters in this movie would have fit right in with the rest of us.

I don't get the hate for this movie. It's not cheap, it's deliberately small, focused and about as emotionally involved as you can get with a small crew of men acting in a 1940s way. I almost wish we hadn't had the bridge scenes with the command crew, and had to entirely take it from the point of view of the gun crew. That's how history happens; people go about their little part, and get these rare little views of the big action.

I was unusually not disturbed by the cookie cutter characters. We rarely see how they really are, but instead get their public face, to their crewmen while at war. People fall into bravado and storytelling just like this. There were moments of doubt and fear that showed this off I think, very well.

Stock footage, sure. But only rarely did I notice the grain mismatching, and they spent an awful lot of effort to make it blend into the narrative. My favorite of these is about 50 minutes in when one of the characters grabs onto a fitting on the gun to lean out and look at a heavily damaged passing ship. They did this because in the foreground of the stock footage is a sailor doing just that. It brought the stock into the story, and is such unseen stock of such specific damage you could never have simulated it with new footage, especially in the 50s.

I was especially pleased with the sets. I guess they are sets due to lighting and so on, but the interior of the gun mount looks absolutely perfect and realistic, and absolutely unexpectedly so. It really helped with the verisimilitude of the whole endeavor.

World war two flick... made seven years later. Pat obrien is commander hale, preparing his crew and his ship to take okinawa. A sub-plot where the cook wants to shoot the guns at the japanese who moved into his family's house. Co-stars rick denning, cameron mitchell. Not a cast of youngster soldiers in this one. Keep an eye out for alvy moore! He was also the useless county agent in green acres! It's all pretty low budget. And much older guys than in most war time films. Exclusively set "on a destroyer", although even much of the action is narrated by the actors, not actually shown. Some actual wartime footage worked in. Not very suspenseful, and no action on land. And suddenly, it's over. A big mehhh..directed by leigh jason.

The two stars are for the men who fought in Okinawa; i served there in the 412th Transportation Co in 1968. I have seen every film ever made about WW 2, which is in the hundreds, and this one, by far, is the worst of all of them.

The film is merely a collection of stock footage, and not one scene is filmed on the island itself. The "action" in the film comes in the last five minutes of an hour quickie made by some sleazy Hollywood exec who figured he could squeeze out a few bucks from the name of the battle. Hopefully, he is roasting somewhere right now.

There is no acting or directing in this "film"; it is mostly stock footage. The poor guy who did most of the work in this movie was the editor. Pathetic.

My Father, LCDR Frank Bernard Quady, USN, was killed aboard the USS Bunker Hill by a double kamikaze attack. For my Father, I say this movie was so bad I quit about half an hour into it.

The guy who played the sailor with the cap pulled down ridiculously was absolutely disgusting. No sailor would wear his cap on like that except possibly at home cleaning out the gutters.

Note: This guy was the "star" of the film – the part that I watched. I couldn't force myself to watch any more.

I grew up in the '50s in Coronado, CA and this movie never played there, as far as I know. I never heard of this flick.

I'll have to rent it sometime and watch only the official U.S. Navy footage, fast forwarding past the stupid sailor, whoever he is or was.

I didn't see any U.S. Naval personnel listed as advisers. They surely would have nixed it.

One more thing about the stupid sailor. He was a disgrace to all sailors. Sailors are the heart of the Navy.