ferbs54
Based on the real-life war exploits of American soldier Al Schmid, the 1945 Warner Brothers picture "Pride of the Marines" tells a very moving story of bravery and personal triumph. The film was a huge box office hit back when, and for good reason. In it, the great John Garfield plays Schmid, and the actor had spent a good deal of time with the wounded warrior in his preparations before filming began. The result: Garfield turns in a performance here that is an Oscar-worthy one.The film cleaves pretty evenly into four discrete sections. In the first, we see Schmid in his hometown of Philadelphia, rooming with a young married couple, Jim and Ella May Merchant (played, respectively, by John Ridgeley, Eddie Mars from "The Big Sleep," and Ann Doran, the child psychiatrist from "Them!"), and their young daughter, Loretta. Ella May is constantly trying to play matchmaker for Schmid, and one day has her friend Ruth Hartley come by for dinner. Al and Ruth do not exactly "meet cute" in this film; as a matter of fact, their first date is marked by bickering, wrangling, insults and general nastiness. But somehow, the two DO manage to take to each other, as Al begins to wear the beautiful young woman down. And as played by Eleanor Parker, 23 years old here, Ruth certainly is a beauty indeed. All seems to be going well until a radio broadcast announces the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a news flash that does not bother the Merchant household overly much; indeed, none of them even seem to know where Pearl Harbor is! But Al wastes little time in signing up for the Marines, shipping off just after he and Ruth declare their love for one another. "I bet it would be more fun shooting Japs than bear," Al declares before he leaves, and brother, does he ever get a chance to do so!In the film's second section, we see Al's harrowing experiences at Guadalcanal in 1942. He and two others, NYC Jew Lee Diamond (another convincing "everyman" portrayal by the great character actor Dane Clark) and Johnny Rivers (Anthony Caruso; Bela Oxmyx from the classic "Star Trek" episode "A Piece of the Action"), bravely defend their machine gun nest against hundreds of advancing Japanese, but Rivers is killed in the battle, Diamond is severely wounded, and Al...well, he seems to be doing well, killing no fewer than 200 (!) of the enemy, until a grenade that is exploded very close to his position results in his near-total blindness. In the third section, an understandably bitter and depressed Al is shown in the veterans hospital in San Diego, where he is assisted by a kindly rehab officer, Virginia Pfeiffer (Rosemary De Camp, from William Castle's "13 Ghosts"). Al decides to call it quits with Ruth, not wanting to be a burden on her. Finally, in the last section, Al returns home to Philly to be awarded the Navy Cross, and Ruth and the Merchants make a desperate attempt to make the despondent war vet feel loved and wanted."Pride of the Marines" was expertly helmed by director Delmer Daves, who had earlier worked on the WW2 film "Destination Tokyo" and would go on to direct such classics as "Dark Passage" (one of this viewer's personal faves), "Broken Arrow" and "3:10 to Yuma." He elicits wonderful performances from all his players and incorporates some startling elements into his film as well. He makes the jungle-fighting sequence truly nerve wracking and does a fine job with Schmid's surrealistic dream sequence (utilizing negative images). The film contains any number of very fine scenes, besides that trippy dream segment and the Guadalcanal carnage. In one, the wounded vets in San Diego talk about their fears of returning to civilian life and their doubts about ever landing a decent job, beating "The Best Years of Our Lives" to the punch by a good 15 months. In another, Ruth desperately tries to convince Al of her devotion, lying next to him beside a fallen Christmas tree. And then there is the final scene, in which Al receives his Navy Cross while Ruth watches; a very moving segment, indeed. But if there is any particular element of the film that most contributes to its success, it would have to be the exceptionally fine performances of both Garfield and Parker. Garfield had just starred with Parker the year before in "Between Two Worlds," and in the next four years would appear in a string of classic films, including "The Postman Always Rings Twice," "Humoresque," "Body and Soul," "Gentleman's Agreement," "Force of Evil" and "We Were Strangers"; a truly remarkable streak. As for Eleanor, I had never watched her in a '40s film before (I believe 1950's "Caged" was the furthest back I'd ever seen this terrific actress), and was very happy to discover that she was both remarkably beautiful here ("Yeah, that's a nice face," Virginia declares of her photograph, and for me, that face would only grow more beautiful as Parker advanced into the 1950s) and more than capable of holding her own in dramatic scenes with the dynamic Garfield. Parker had only been a screen actress for three years at this point, but her talent is simply undeniable here; anyone could tell that this young actress would be "going places" soon enough....
jsk32870
It's never a promising sign when you find yourself checking the time to see how much of the film is left to go. I did that with this one, only 32 minutes in....which means I still had 90 minutes more of this train wreck. And believe me, at times it is a train wreck. Those reviewers on here giving this 8, 9 or 10 stars could use some introspection.What am I talking about? Well let's see...in the first 30 minutes, we watch the "hero," Al Schmid, kiss a preteen girl on the lips (his best-friend's daughter), then tell her that in 5-6 years he will marry her. If I did that to my best friend's daughter he would punch my lights out (and rightly so) before calling the police and reporting me for being a child predator. Then, Al is set up on a blind date with a woman named Ruth, apparently against his will, so his way of dealing with the situation is to attempt to loudly belittle and disparage his date in a bowling alley for all to hear. Quite mature for our hero, wouldn't you say? The next day he realizes the error of his ways....so he decides to make it up to her. How? By confronting her at a public bus stop and telling everyone present that she has abandoned their boy and is seemingly guilty of child negligence. Never mind the fact that they are not a couple and there is no child, he is making the whole thing up to shame her in front of a group of strangers. What an honorable guy, this Al. But she inexplicably gets in his car, anyway, instead of telling him to get lost, and he proceeds to drive her home. When he learns there is another man waiting at home to take her out on a date, he purposely crashes his car into the other man's in a fit of rage, anger and/or jealousy. And quite laughably, shortly after this incident Ruth decides "wow this is the guy for me!" It was at this point I looked at the time because I was saying to myself "how much more of this nonsense can I take?" Keep in mind you as the viewer are supposed to look upon the actions of Al as commendable - he is the subject of the film - the "Pride of the Marines." So the protagonist - our hero - is an ill-tempered, pompous, creepy, impulsive liar. And you are supposed to be sympathetic towards him...it is that bad.Not helping matters is the misleading title. Of the two-hour running time, only about 20 minutes concerns Al's active duty in the Marines. The rest is spent either establishing his "courtship" of Ruth (cough cough) or the bitterness he feels after suffering injuries in battle (about an hour and the bulk of the film). In between there is one action sequence set in Guadalcanal from which the film gets its title (I suppose). So dispel the notion that this is a war film or an action film, it is largely neither. It's a rather shoddy attempt to engender pride and rouse patriotic fervor, as this was produced in the latter stages of World War II. However, the callous and indifferent way Al treats other people, especially those close to him, both before and after that battle sequence is actually quite despicable and not worthy of anyone's pride. This film is based on a real person named Al Schmid. I can only hope the real Al wasn't as much of a cad as the one portrayed here. Ouch.
