Frogmen in the Air

Today is Veterans' Day here in the US. Of course, it used to be Armistice Day, since it originally marked the end of World War I, but nowadays it's another holiday to honor all veterans. TCM is running a bunch of war movies, but either I've blogged about their selections, or don't have them on my DVR or on a DVD. I couldn't find anything World War I-related offhand, so instead I decided to dig out my box set of John Wayne war movies, and watch Flying Leathernecks.

Wayne stars as Maj. Kirby, who has just been given command of a group of Marine flyboys in World War II who are about to get involved in the battle for Guadalcanal. None of the men in the squadron know Kirby, and they were expecting that the group's former second-in-command, Capt. Griffin (Robert Ryan), would be elevated to commander to replace the old guy. But apparently the brass some levels above didn't think Griffin was ready for command yet, which is why Kirby has been brought in.

So it's understandable that the men don't particularly like Kirby. But he only makes it tougher on himself by being a stickler for doing things the right way, and being particularly not nice about it when the men under his command screw up. When one guy loses a fighter while chasing a Japanese reconnaissance plane, Kirby schedules the man for a court martial! But in Kirby's defense, there's a war on, and if there's too much laxity, there's no way the Americans are going to win.

Since there's a war on, we get a lot of combat sequences, and these are all made up of actual combat footage from World War II, which is mildy jarring since it looks like it ws done on different film stock compared to all the Hollywood scenes. And there's not much of a plot fleshed out besides the ever-present conflict between Kirby and Griffin over whether Griffin will ever be fit for command.

It's not all that long ago that I did a post on the Fox film The Frogmen, which deals with many similar themes, with Richard Widmark in the "new commander" role taken on here by Wayne, and Dana Andrews in the "man passed over" role given to Robert Ryan. And frankly, I preferred The Frogmen, because I think the characters are better fleshed out. Everybody tries their best in Flying Leathernecks, but the picture never really goes anywhere.