La patrouille infernale

This particular war movie has its fine moments, implementing the good, old-fashioned "never-a-dull-moment" bravura common of the numerous World War II B-movies of its type. However, I find a few aspects baffling. The Marines assigned on secret missions such as those played by Curtis and Lovejoy should not be armed with standard rifles; hard-hitting weaponry like Thompson 'Tommy' .45 caliber submachine guns would have been more appropriate. There was one prop that was also questionable, like the immobile one-dimensional Type 95 Japanese tank they were taking shots at, which if memory serves me well, appeared to be a well-tailored but hilariously-obvious cardboard cutout!! But, aforementioned criteria aside, the film is indeed enlightening and I recommend it as quintessential entertainment for a late Saturday night. (I myself last saw this movie with my brother back in 1986 on a Saturday night/Sunday morning 2:00 a.m. time slot, on ABC Channel 7's well-renowned Late, Late Show.)

The other reviews pretty much cover the ground. The premise is pretty hokey. What was a French planter doing on islands that were never controlled by France. How could he have lived his whole life on those islands when he must have been born before the British, not the French, made them a protectorate? How did a planter living on an island occupied by the Japanese learn the location of sea mines planted around the island of Bougainville, 30 miles away?

One more complaint. Why do so many movies have the heroine trip and hurt her ankle. So many have silly scenes like that: "'help I've fallen and I can't get up."

I will next limit my comments to a few corrections.

One review refers to the scene of the action as an "atoll". Wrong, atolls are low islands built up from coral. This was obviously filmed on one of the high volcanic islands that dot the Pacific Ocean, Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands.

Another comment call it a "wartime movie". Filmed in 1953, it was far too late for that. After all WW II ended in 1945.

One review mentioned similar movies, described as those with

"American soldiers battling Japanese on the Pacific islands during the WWII are the following: ..... Objective Burma by Raoul Walsh with Errol Flynn"

Sorry, but Burma is a whole country all its own on the Asian mainland. It is not an island in the Pacific or any other ocean. The only coastline it has faces the Indian Ocean. The movie really frosted the Brits when it came out in 1944 since they knew full well that Burma was the objective of the British XIVth Army which re-conquered it from the Japanese. The Brits angrily objected to Americans claiming that victory in the movies. Ironically the XIVth Army was made up largely of divisions from the Indian Army.

Standard Hollywood war heroics, clearly minor-league despite being filmed in pleasant Technicolor; it's yet another Pacific-based actioner with a tight American unit on an 'impossible' mission before the fleet's planned all-out attack. Typically, tension is created among the men by the fact that the commanding officer (Frank Lovejoy) is 'tainted' – his leadership qualities having been taken to task over the massacre at Guadalcanal. Here, too, he causes the death of two of his underlings – leaving only himself and Tony Curtis to verify the message sent by a French missionary from a Japanese-held island. When they finally come across him, the soldiers are surprised to find he has brought a daughter (Mary Murphy) along: of course, this strains the relationship between the two fighting men all the more – though it's rather silly of middle-aged Lovejoy to think he could offer competition to the rugged, handsome Curtis! The action set-pieces are adequately handled under the circumstances (with one surprising bit involving a U.S. marine being dragged by the enemy inside their tank about to explode from his own grenade!) but, at the end of the day, the film emerges a rather undistinguished entry within this prolific genre.

If the U.S. Marines had not put a few diversionary landings on the small island location of this film, Mary Murphy and Eduard Franz might have had to spend the rest of the war playing tag with the Japanese.

As it is their island as per the strategy of MacArthur is being hopped over for a landing on nearby Bougainville. But Franz knows where the minefields on Bougainville are located and he sends out a message. Of course it has to be confirmed so Frank Lovejoy is given a special mission for his squad to find Franz and verify.

Easier said than done, especially with the other men of the squad, Tony Curtis, Alan Wells, and Skip Homeier hating Lovejoy's guts over some business back at Guadalcanal. But they're going to have to get over it if the mission is to be accomplished.

Not usual for war films, but Mary Murphy in a tight blue dress is a nice diversion for the audience. She sure is a nice diversion for Tony Curtis who has to keep his mind on the war.

Beachhead does have some nice location photography on the Hawaiian island of Kauai for a very realistic setting in a film about the Pacific War.

It's not the greatest of war films, but passably entertaining enough.

See it – This Tony Curtis movie is finally being rediscovered, and it is beyond me how it has gone under the radar for so long. In some ways, this is superior to a lot of other WWII movies. It is the story of 4 marines who embark on a secret mission on a Japanese-occupied island. Their mission is to sneak through the jungle to meet an intelligence contact. It has a lot of rugged action and never lacks in the excitement department. But it is missing the elements that make a film a classic. For instance, the acting and script leave a lot to be desired. And the ending action scene is laughable because of the horrible special effects. I guess they didn't want to wait 30 years for the scene to be done right. But as shocking as it is to hear me say it, this is actually a good Tony Curtis action movie when it's all said and done. 4 out of 5 action rating