Romance dos Sete Mares

Picked this up as a cheap DVD as I am a sucker for 40's/50's WW2 films.

Taken as a bit of propaganda and entertainment, and not reflecting in any way historical fact, it achieves it's aim. IMO, it is not up to the standard of some of Wayne's other WW2 films of this period such as Sands of Iwo Jima and They Were Expendable.

It is somewhat disjointed, but I can imagine it having a positive effect on recruitment for the US Forces. Some earlier threads have commented on the reasons why Wayne did not have active war service. Whatever the reason, I would think he had a more positive effect on by being on film rather than seeing active service.

Before writing this review I took a quick look at Wikipedia and the article they have on the Seabees. Despite the fanciful story that Borden Chase wrote here about how the service was founded, the Seabees were actually an idea already thought of by Admiral Ben Morreell the Chief of Navy Supply even before Pearl Harbor.

Unlike the war in Europe where the Allies would be looking to take an hold cities with facilities already there, like air fields for example, those planning the war in the Pacific knew that they would be starting from scratch. Airfields, fuel depots, etc. would have to be constructed on jungle islands in the Pacific. So the idea of a separate service for the construction trade was born.

Now that we know that the plot of The Fighting Seabees is so much hogwash, let me say that what the film does do very well is show the hazards of what the men in that service faced. Trying to build facilities at the same time as the enemy is firing on them. The scenario in this film is repeated many times over on the islands of the Pacific.

As to the story of this film, John Wayne reverses roles here. In most of his war films he's usually the professional military man, here he's the tough, but inpatient civilian who never seems to learn the value of military discipline. Of course being this is the Duke, he does redeem himself in the end in a spectacular manner.

A love triangle is tossed in here, rather unnecessarily in my opinion, a straightforward account of Seabee heroism would have been sufficient. Wayne and Navy Commander Dennis O'Keefe are both interested in war correspondent Susan Hayward. This was Hayward's second film with John Wayne, who along with Clark Gable, and Dean Martin, she once described as her three favorite leading men. Her big scene is when she's wounded and thinks she's cashing in, she declares her love for the Duke. Susan Hayward has always been a favorite of mine, but it's on the strength of her performances in her starring roles in the Fifties, not as the sex object in The Fighting Seabees.

The Fighting Seabees isn't one of the Duke's top 10 or even top 20, but it's a decent enough film to sit through even with the World War II heroic bravado that was obligatory at the time this was made. You even get to see John Wayne attempt the jitterbug. During that scene, the Duke looks mighty uncomfortable. He was never going to compete with Fred Astaire for roles.

Werner's rather tepid 6 out of 10 evaluation of THE FIGHTING SEABEES notwithstanding (I'd have given the film much higher, but that is just opinion), the allegation that Wayne failed to perform military service during World War II owing to "disabling restrictions" is simply not true. Accounts vary in accounting for his lack of military service, but none of them have to do with disabilities of any kind. As a married man with four children, he was exempt from the draft. His daughter Ayssa reports that Wayne was eager for military service but that pressure from Republic Pictures (with whom he was making enormously profitable films) convinced him not to volunteer for military service. A less flattering picture emerges from Gary Wills JOHN WAYNE'S America: THE POLITICS OF CELEBRITY in which evidence seems to indicate that Wayne (who was no physical coward by any stretch of the imagination) made a complex decision based on his growing stature in the film industry, his value as a propaganda symbol, his increasing paycheck, and the fact that he found film-making so rewarding. Whether an outside observer finds this an appealing portrait or not, there is ample evidence to suggest that Wayne always regretted thereafter not having served on active duty.

My father, who was a Seabee in the Pacific during World War II, always considered this film to be 99% absolute rubbish. He insisted that the only aspects of this movie that had any basis in fact were that the Seabees actually did recruit professional engineers and construction workers, that many of them were considerably older than other service men, that they were occasionally called upon to defend themselves, and that they really could build anything. In his day the Seabees did not yet have their own training facilities, so they did their basic military training not with the Navy but with the Marines. The way to tell the difference between a Marine base and a Seabase base was that the Marines were all 18 years old and lived in pup tents, while the Seabees were mostly in their forties and fifties and their encampments always had heat, hot and cold running water, washing machines, shower facilities, stills, and all the other comforts of home, all of which the Seabees manufactured themselves in their spare time.

I was a "Seabee" w/ MCB 4, from 1964-1970!! In basic training in Port Hueneme California, during our first week of training we were marched to the post theater, and were shown this movie. We for the most part thought it was a good movie, but thought it might have been a little overplayed as a promotional thing to peak our interests in becoming a "SeaBee!? ..Well after two full tours in Viet Nam, with my battalion! I have come to the realization. That this is one of the few Wayne war movies of the WW2 time frame that is as close to accurate as they could portray a unit of the Armed Forces! A bunch of Construction workers doing their damndest to get a job done no matter the adversity or dangers ! the only real link they had to being in the military was the fact they were wearing uniforms! they Build and Fight! and Party hard !! just as we did and as the Bees still do !!