ALLAN DWAN, THE SANDS OF IWO JIMA (1949) 1HR 50

THE DIRECTOR: ALLAN DWAN (1885-1981)

Life

Canadian-born director, producer, screenwriter. Came to movies via a job as a lighting technician with entree as story writer. Very prolific director who worked on about 1,850 films (400 as director - many one reeler silent films and B Westerns). Used his technical skills to invent many moviemaking techniques (moving "dolly", on stage sound recording). Worked with Lon Chaney, Douglas Fairbanks, Gloria Swanson, Shirley Temple, and at Republic pictures John Wayne.

Films

THE FILM

Meaning of the Title

A reference to one of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific War - the taking of one of the first Japanese "home islands", the island of Iwo Jima in February 1945. The US Marines lost many men inching their way up Mt. Suribachi upon which they eventually placed the US flag (6,800 dead; 20,000 wounded). The film ends with a re-enactment (using both the origianl flag and the three marines) of the flag raising on top of Mt. Suribachi. Nevertheless, most of the film is about events leading up to the invasion of Iwo Jima - with combat footage taken from figting on Tarawa.

Cast

• John Wayne - Sgt. John M. Stryker
• John Agar - PFC. Peter Conway
• Adele Mara - Allison Bromley
• Forrest Tucker - PFC Al Thomas
• Wally Cassell - PFC Benny Regazzi
• James Brown - PFC Charlie Bass
• Richard Webb - PFC Shipley
• Arthur Franz - CPL. Robert Dunne/Narrator
• PFCs Rene A. Gagnon and Ira H. Hayes, PM3/C John H. Bradley - playing themselves raising the flag.
• technical advisor Cpt Leonard Fribourg

JW plays a fatherly, battle-hardened Marine who has to prepare a group of raw recruits for battle. He drives them very hard knowing what they will have to face (he had served at Guadalcanal). One of the hard lessons he teaches them is that some soldiers have to be sacrificed so that others may survive (Tarawa). A more vulnerable, humane side to the warrior hero JW normally played is shown on R&R in Hawaii. Another unusual aspect is the death of JW (although his spirit lives on in the men who have to fill his shoes).

The historical context of the making of the film: the communist revolution in China in 1949, the intensification of the Cold War in Europe following the communist revolutions of 1948 and the creation of "two Germanies" in 1949, the growing crisis in Korea leading to the outbreak of war in 1950, he growing anti-communist feeling in the USA.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Thomas Doherty, Projections of War: Hollywood, American Culture, and World War II (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).

Karal Ann Marling and John Wetenhall, Iwo Jima: Monuments, Memories, and the American Hero (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991). Chapter 7 "Guts and Glory: Sands of Iwo Jima," pp. 122-45.

Jeanine Basinger, The World War II Combat Film: Anatomy of a Genre (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986).

THINGS TO NOTE

• The use of the original three soldiers who participated in the flag-raising at Iwo Jima - PFCs Rene A. Gagnon and Ira H. Hayes, PM3/C John H. Bradley. The photo was taken by a journalist, Joe Rosenthal, some hours after the taking of Mt. Suribachi - thus "re-enacted" for the camera. The photo was quickly used by the press in America to show how the Marines were winning the war; a statue and memorial was based upon this photograph, Dwan's film used the original soldiers in the film to "re-enact" the photograph. See Marling and Wetenhall for the history of this Marine icon.
• The dedication to the Marine Corps, singing of the Marine Hymn, the Marine motto Semper Fidelis ("Semper Fi, do or die!") marks this film as a quintessential WW2 combat movie as defined by Janine Basinger.
• The considerable assistance provided by the Marine Corps in the making of the film (estimated to be more than the $1 million spent by the studio Republic Pictures) - the use of the Seventh Regiment as extras in assaulting Mt Suribachi; materiel like jeeps, tanks, planes, landing craft; a loan (under armed guard) of the original flag raised atop Mt Suribachi
• The reference to Audie Murphy by one of the characters - "If he comes out of the war alive I'm going to make him a movie star".
• The "last stand" when the men have to dig in on Tarawa to hold at all costs.
• The father-figure of JW - served under Conway's father, now Conway serves under Stryker. The Marines as a "family" for loners (compare Glory). Stryker's letter to his son (never sent) about the importance of family life in post-war America, a life which he could not provide for his own family given his way of life.
• the impact of the film of John Wayne's career - nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, , personal fortune from a percentage of the proceeds, rose to number 1 in box-office polls in 19150
• The excellent combat scenes (20 minutes in all). But are they the "sanitised guts and glory" which Doherty claims them to be? (p. 272). The use of actual combat footage (flame throwers) to give added "realism".
• Compare the unexpected, random, unheroic death of Stryker and that of Paul Bäumer in AQWF.(Other films in which JW dies - Reap the Wild Wind, Wake of the Red Witch, The Cowboys, The Shootist, The Alamo. As Basinger notes with insight:

In this sense, we must have a film in which we kill John Wayne, and Sands of Iwo Jima is that film. By killing him, we rid ourselves of the war and of wartime attitudes, even though we still need our stories about it and must respect those who died for us in battle. Now Stryker's dead and it's over - we can go on, more mature and ready for peacetime. This undercurrent of the entire film is duly reflected in the important presence in it of women and of subplots involving women and family structures. Those who think of John Wayne and of all war films as a one-sided affair should see the dark and tragic Sands of Iwo Jima, a war film with a subtext which speaks against war and against Sgt. Stryker - speaks eloquently, and with compassion. (Basinger, p. 170)

• 1949 was a pivotal year for the making of WW2 movies because, as Doherty observes, it was "distant enough to forget the bad, close enough to recall the buzz" (p. 272). For 20 years Hollywood returned to the theme until the Vietnam War drove them out of fashion. The marketing campaign for the film's re-release in 1954 (post-Korean War) is even further removed from the memory of the war. Doherty notes the combination of "sweet Homeric dreams" and "the manly compensations of combat" designed to appeal to the market of young teenage men who went to the movies in the mid-1950s. He quotes the following passages from the press kit used in the film's re-release noting the "war-forged symbiosis between Hollywood and the military" (p. 274). Compare the way films like Top Gun assisted recruiting in the 1980s:

Throughout the nation, the United States Marine Corps is on the alert - ready to give you (the exhibitor) every possible cooperation to help put Sands of Iwo Jima across! Every Marine Corps Unit in the country is ready to work with you on crowd-building promotion...

Check the exploitation angles in the pressbook! Then go after that Marine cooperation for all these box office assists they can help you line up - parades, bands, displays, newspaper and radio coverage, A-Board posting - solid showmanship angles that will really sell your town on seeing Sands of Iwo Jima. Your local United States Marine Corps Recruiting Officer is the man to see!