The Flying Leathernecks: I laugh and I cry

This film made me laugh. I can’t imagine that the intention was to take up a sarcastically humorous tone, but I found it ironic early on and I couldn’t take it seriously after that. Jay C. Flippen’s character, Maj. Sgt. Clancy was tiring. Every time Flippen was on the screen I got the feeling that he was delivering his lines to teach the audience valuable lessons about America, family, and the joys of alcohol.  Each time he comes in with a new “treat for the guys” I got more and more suspicious that he had some kind of social outcast complex that made him feel responsible for these people, but also stopped him from celebrating along with them.

            John Wayne’s role was flat. It wasn’t interesting. It was stereotypical and I had a time waiting for his line delivery to be over. It was shocking how long he could extend even the shortest lines into a longer amount of screen time. I laughed a few times at his exaggerated “piloting skills” and I must say I enjoyed those shots very much.

            Robert Ryan was also very obviously overacting (not to say that John Wayne was) but in any case, his performance was so strikingly different from any other film he did with Ray that I was really shocked. Some of his line deliveries were so painful I couldn’t help but laugh. He clearly wasn’t taking the role as seriously as he had in other films. Though it wasn’t distracting, (if that’s even possible to say about this film) it wasn’t the Robert Ryan that I had grown to love.

            The scene where the archival footage was inter-cut with the studio shot footage was terrible. The soldiers’ uniforms were different first of all. This alone was strange, but combined with the graphic nature of the actual soldiers fighting, contrasting with the well pressed and manicured soldiers on the studio lot was actually pretty chilling. It took me out of the film and into reality over and over again. It was hard to watch. It did however, force me to see how truly silly these actors looked. It made their whole situation so unrealistic that it stuck with me through the whole film.

            I would love to talk to the art director. How difficult would it be to put together such a lofty task when no one was interested? How did the interaction with Nicholas Ray effect the art direction of the film? There were so many blatantly obvious weak points that I can’t help but wonder who was calling all the shots. It was interesting to observe these gaps in logic and wonder weather or not they were on purpose.

Overall there isn’t much to be said about the film, other than it was obvious that if anyone (besides the studio) cared about making this film, they were outnumbered. The film seemed like it was about an hour and half too long and it used the same formula over and over again to keep the viewer watching (not interested, just watching). I can’t say I’m a fan of this film, but I’m not sure if anyone working on it was a fan either.