La patrouille infernale

About half-way through the movie, there's an episode with a Japanese prisoner that's really chilling and unexpected. It's what I've remembered of this war film over the years, and I expect it took some nerve for the screenplay to treat the topic in such a cold-blooded way. Aside from that memorable scene, the chase across the island generates some suspense and having the Japanese tracker played by a bare-chested muscle man adds a colorful scary touch. Then too, filming in the jungles of Kauai makes events seem more real and interesting to look at.

At this stage of his career, Tony Curtis was considered little more than a light-weight pretty boy with a heavy Bronx accent. He was later to prove the critics wrong. Beachead is a better movie than might be expected, thanks to director Stuart Heisler who knows how to stage scenes and keep things moving. (Note the jolting way he stages Skip Homeier's death scene.) Pacing events is no small challenge since Heisler has to work in a romance between Curtis and Murphy in the midst of combat on a Pacific island.

Anyway, the acting is good, especially the always low-key Frank Lovejoy as the Marine sergeant-- too bad, he's now largely forgotten. I guess the producers had to protect Curtis's matinée appeal by including Murphy in the cast (note how her dress gets skimpier and skimpier as they scamper along!). Her role is okay if you can buy her and Curtis getting "intimate" in the middle of a life-and-death chase. Be that as it may, despite its potboiler status, this little programmer has some nice touches and holds interest throughout.

One of Tony Curtis' early starring roles is this war film of a detachment of Marines sent out to locate a planter and verify a message he sent concerning the location of Japanese minefields on the island. Because of the danger surrounding their mission, tempers are frayed and old resentments surface as the platoon makes its way through the jungle while trying to avoid detection by Japanese soldiers who seem to be all around them. The film has several tense moments as the Marines find a way to slip through the tightening Japanese noose and face even more danger after locating the planter and his daughter. Curtis is the marquee name here and his Hollywood hunk appeal is displayed to good effect while trying to spark pretty Mary Murphy. Frank Lovejoy is solid as always as the Marine sergeant leader with something to prove after a disastrous result at Guadalcanal. John Doucette, a great character actor in his time, has a cameo role as a major who sends the platoon out on its mission impossible. Technicolor is lush and realistic and the music score is also very nice.

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.)

Tony Curtis stars as a US Marine on a treacherous mission to locate a Frenchman on Bougainville who may have important information which will save the lives of hundreds of American troops. He's accompanied on the mission by Sergeant Frank Lovejoy, who failed in his last mission on Guadalcanal, and GIs Skip Homeier and Alan Wells. The film's title implies an invasion sequence, but Beachhead is more of a cat and mouse chase film, with our heroes--also burdened by the presence of attractive love interest Mary Murphy--being pursued by a squad of Japanese troops. Curtis looks hot and hunky and never has a hair out of place. It's not the most realistic or exciting war film you've ever seen, but the Kauai location footage adds flavour and Lovejoy is fairly good.

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.