Tarawa Beachhead

Marine sergeant Kerwin Mathews saw his lieutenant, Ray Danton, shoot one of his own men during the Battle of Guadalcanal to cover his own incompetence. He wants to have Danton broken, but figures it's his word against an officer. Mathews gets assigned to be the marine who goes around and speaks to the family of the dead. He develops feelings for Julie Adams, the widow of the dead marine, and she for him.... while Danton is romancing her sister. Promoted to lieutenant -- with Danton now a captain -- Mathews finally files the papers accusing Danton of murder. But before they'll be looked at, they have to take Tarawa.

Paul Wendkos directs this movie about marines, and what being one comes down to in the end. It all seems confused, but we definitely get the idea that Danton is an amoral opportunist, and that the Marines don't care. Just get in there and fight. With Karen Sharpe, Onslow Stevens, and Morris Ankrum.

This film is a cheapie B version of the solid war movies made during the forties. Everything smacks of low production values; the fake marines, the hair styles of the women featured in the film, and the obvious footage of battle sequences from both newsreels and Sands of Iwo Jima, that are used for this film.

The two lead actors give a good account of themselves, but they cannot save this inconsistent film.

Yes, war is inconsistent as well; sometimes a man is a hero, and at other times can be a coward, but the ambiguities of war need a bit of clarification when when is making an hour and a half film.

Too much time is spent on the non-military sequences, and not enough time is spent on the average grunts who made our victories in the Pacific possible. Does anyone really care about a family of a father and two daughters in New Zealand, when compared to the loss of dozens of marines fighting on the beachhead of Tarawa? I don't think so.

A good story, a little tepid, but with a nice twist at the end. Kerwin Matthews (the best Sinbad), Ray Danton (Legs Diamond), and Julie Adams (Creature from the Black Lagoon) don't exactly form a triangle. Matthews gets to display the anger missing from his fantasy roles, Danton makes a complex bad guy, and Adams is gorgeous and sincere, a 50's version of Jennifer Conelly. Screenplay has some good lines (but not enough) by Richard Alan Simmons who wrote Incredible Shrinking Man (but not its story). If you like the actors, worth checking out.

On Guadalcanal, Lieutenant Joel Brady (Ray Danton) pushes his men beyond reason for personal glory and loses most of them. When Johnny Campbell starts to threaten to expose him, he shoots Campbell dead. Sgt. Tom Sloan (Kerwin Mathews) reluctantly lets it go as the sole surviving witness. With no other support, he can't expect anyone to believe him over his superior's version of event. Back home, he tries to comfort Johnny's widow Ruth Nelson Campbell (Julie Adams). Brady commands Sloan on his next deployment to Tarawa.

In the post Korean war landscape, this subject matter may find better purchase. Of course, the military would never help in the production. I don't really know these actors. They're a little stiff and don't look to be big stars. This could use bigger stars and a bigger production. They really don't have enough soldiers for the battle scenes.

Meh, it's a B movie from the 50s, running only 77 minutes. It's not terrible, but don't expect to see much that's accurate about the Battle of Tarawa...except perhaps for the justification for choosing the Central Pacific route to Japan rather than going exclusively through Australia, New Guinea, and the Philippines. As in "Battle Cry," another film concerning the 2nd Marine Division prior to Tarawa, much of the film is set in New Zealand, but some of the purported Kiwis have accents from no farther west than California and hair styles no older than the late 1950s. If you've seen "Sands of Iwo Jima," you'll recognize much of the battle and beach footage, just stuck into this movie in between dialogue scenes in order to avoid having to pay to stage it again, I guess. Some accurate, some inaccurate combat film is inserted; as for the latter, amphibious tanks and vehicles with Army markings spoil the mood if you're trying to get a feel for the real Tarawa, as do broad, sandy beaches and lush, intact vegetation. The hatred between the main characters is well done, and the villain is a good mix of hero and coward. The trope of the woman burned badly by losing a husband at war and determined never to fall in love again is on full display (as in "Battle Cry" and "The Americanization of Emily").