ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Manthast Absolutely amazing

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Sammy-Jo Cervantes There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

tinyandmisty having just watched this excuse for a movie once again, I find it hard to understand how people take notice of such ridiculous and dumb propaganda. obviously made during the war years aimed at immature youngsters between the ages of six and recruitment age. any similarity between actual military service and what takes place in this movie is purely accidental. one has to be extremely gullible to believe anything other than the names of cast, and the titles. military rules are NOT broken on a regular basis just to make you love the corps even more. and marines are definitely not as dumb or childish as they are portrayed in this movie

writers_reign Fox never balked at plundering the Marine Hymn for titles - a few short years after this hit the screen they used the preceding line (From) The Halls of Montezuma, for an early Richard Widmark vehicle. There's little original here; playboy John Wayne enlists in the marine core shortly before Pearl Harbor so it's light on action. Payne's old man had served and remained friends with Randolph Scott and prevails upon him to whip son Payne into shape. Payne meanwhile falls heavily for nurse Maureen O'Hara (they co-starred in four films, including Miracle on 43nd Street) and helmer Bruce Humberstone gets a lot of mileage out of the on-again off-again affair. William Tracey scores heavily as does Harry Morgan in his movie debut. Watchable but that's about all.

holy1 I agree with the evaluation of bsmith5552 that it is a disappointing flagwaver, and essentially a U.S.Marine recruitment film. But it has its own place in history. I have just been refreshed as to that place in history by watching again the film version of Leon Uris's first (and maybe best) novel, Battle Cry. Uris dramatized his own experience as a young marine, first training in the States, then in Wellington and elsewhere in New Zealand and finally fighting in the islands of the Pacific He has a fascinating picture of what it was like for young Americans to find themselves in a strange and previously unheard of land like New Zealand. I was a Kiwi teenager in Wellington at that time and can vouch for the accuracy of Uris' depiction of the impact of the descent of thousands of young marines on our city and of their interaction with the locals. To the Shores of Tripoli screened in Wellington in 1942, not long after Pearl Harbor, in the time the newly formed Marine Divisions were there preparing for their involvement in the war in the South Pacific. Through that film we saw on our screens the training only months earlier of the men who were now in our midst. Bsmith5552 speaks of the repetitive sequences of close order drill. I watched the marine band perform those intricate marching exercises in colour film in a local cinema ("picture theatre" in our brand of English). This was the same week I saw them do it live in Wellington. I was transfixed as I saw utterly committed young marines rise and stand to attention in their places in the cinema as the Marines Hymn came through on the film's sound track. I was not simply present at a piece of entertainment. I was watching live drama. To the Shores of Tripoli may not have been a great movie. But in the South Pacific in 1942, when we (maybe unlike today's Iraquis) welcomed the Marines as life savers, preserving us from a Japanese invasion, it had its place in the drama of that time. I viewed it sixty years ago with great interest. I would like the little niche it has in cinema history to be remembered.

pcronin This is probably John Payne's best vehicle. He plays the rugged individualist Pvt Chris Winters, an upstart booted from Culver who enlists in the marines, not coincidentally in the unit headed by his father's old officer buddy who not also coincidentally saved his life. Funny things start happening right away. First his girlfriend who he joined to get away from's father is the CO, so she always gets letters excusing him from duty to be with her. Ugh. Next Chris falls head over heels for beautiful 2nd Lieut Mary Carter, a cold nurse who quickly melts when he will stop at nothing to get near her, immediately feigning hit by a military truck to land him in the infirmary. She teaches him a hilarious but painful lesson, yet he is still determined. Then it gets serious when they're assigned C school duty and are called to "war games" at sea which consists of going into a mine field, where Chris' Sgt Dixie Smith played by Randolph Scott gets knocked out and is in grave danger of being blown up. Chris takes a boat from the sweeper and singlehandedly rescues him, returning to a heroes welcome. He has won over Mary, but gets angry because he is so principled and it is killing his spirit. Mary says goodbye, and he goes with his girlfriend to a cushy desk job in Washington, only in the car listening to the radio he hears that the Japanese have just bombed Pearl Harbor. His unit happens to be parading by on their way to war, so he leaps out and changes back from suit to uniform hiding among the ranks. That is humorous too. The final scene is the ship leaving the harbor with Mary in Chris' arms and everyone singing the Marine Hymn, "From the Halls of Montezuma!...", and you know the rest! Pick up a copy today!