Flying Leathernecks

Flying Leathernecks (1951)

Runtime: 102 minutes

Directed by: Nicholas Ray

Starring: John Wayne, Robert Ryan, Don Taylor, Jay C. Flippen, William Harrigan

From: RKO

This seemed apt for Memorial Day Weekend, the holiday in the United States where every person in the military who gave their life while serving is celebrated. This was selected as it is part of a DVD collection I’ve had for ages and for some, the title will be baffling. However, its origin is simple: it is military slang for United States Marine Corps soldiers, the term allegedly due to the past practice of wearing a leather stock around their necks. Indeed, this covers a regiment that does battle in the air and the setting is the campaign of Guadalcanal. Only the basics of that need to be known: it takes place soon after the Battle of Midway and the campaign against Japan is in the Solomon Islands of the South Pacific, not far from Australia.

The plot: John Wayne is a Major and he is the leader of a regiment that is full of young men who have no experience in this. Naturally they are on the immature side and naturally he is stern with them, although to me not outrageously so. He’s not a total heel about it… he just needs them to be soldiers and he himself is not happy with the circumstances of putting those young men in battle and needing them to fight even if they are feeling ill. Second in command is Robert Ryan who worked previously with the regiment so he’s naturally defensive and there is a natural clash between the two.

It's a standard tale which at least was competently done, often using actual wartime footage to augment the action created for the movie. As expected Wayne and Ryan were the standouts performance-wise; as various people have noted in the past, they did not necessarily like that Wayne never served in the military during World War II so that caused friction. Ryan was actually a member of the Marine Corps, serving as a drill instructor during the last years of the war; a few other members of this cast also served in the early 40’s.

This does have some Japanese slurs which I won’t repeat and there are some lulls in the final act. Even then, this was an acceptable World War II picture where both heroics and death are present-the futility of war is a theme. It’s the sort of film I am sure both my parents would or would have enjoyed.