In Harm's Way (1965)

Very Cool!!!

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Best movie ever!

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This movie is one of the reasons I think John Wayne looks his best in a U.S Navy officers uniform. Some may say that all-star casts are not a guarantee of success, but that is not the case with this movie. Henry Fonda does as good a job portraying Admiral Nimitz in this picture as he did several years later in "Midway", if not better. It is usually difficult to weave many subplots together as in this one, but it comes together well. The relationship between Tom Tryon and Paula Prentiss is one of the best done, without getting too mushy, to borrow from the younger generation terms. If there is one fault with this movie, it is the special effects with the ship models during the battle scenes. They look too much like toys, but this was ten to fifteen years before CGI and "Star Wars" and "Krull". I will give them some leeway on that one. All in all, I feel this is some of the best work of many of these actors careers.

"In Harm's Way" is not an action-packed war film. But it is a very good movie about the American Navy at the start of World War II. And, it has a modest amount of sea battle scenes. The cast has some big names – John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Patricia Neal, Burgess Meredith, Tom Tryon, Paula Prentiss, George Kennedy, Carroll O'Connor, Slim Pickens and Henry Fonda. All of the cast give good performances. The movie is based on a 1962 novel by James Bassett. Although it's fiction, and the characters and many places in the South Pacific are fictitious, the film has some historical value. It is a very good picture of Navy life and the culture just before the start of World War II. The scenes of the bombing of Pearl Harbor are so weak that I think the film would have been better to skip that event. Nowhere is there a single Japanese plane seen in the sky. Only a couple of ships are seen at all when the bombing begins. There is very little carnage or confusion in the attack. We see a few individual explosions in open water.But, after that poor rendition of the opening salvo of the war for America, the movie gets into the details of conduct of the naval war. It shows much of the routine, the paper work and red tape that was part of life. It shows the problems of command and weak leadership in places. It shows the confusion and uncertainty. All of that was real, as other films develop more. And it has romance, which is real where naval units have ports and land bases from which they operate.This is just one of two movies made that show the U.S. para-marines. At the same time the Army was training men to form the parachute units that would fight in Europe and then the Pacific, the Marine Corps was training men to form para-marine battalions. RKO's 1944 film, "Marine Raiders" was about para-marine and marine raider training. And, it had a fictional portrayal of them fighting on Guadalcanal. "In Harm's Way" shows a fictional combat jump by the para-marines. The jump procedures shown in the film are identical to those used by the Army in 1965, when this movie came out. The distant shots show jumping from what looks like Douglas R4D aircraft. Those probably were clips from training films shot during the war. When Col. Gregory (George Kennedy) leads his men in the parachute jump, it sounds as though he says, "Let's go Rangers." It could be "raiders," but why wouldn't it be "Marines?" The para-marines were a special unit of the Marines. Only 40 percent of the regular marines who trained for the units made it through. During the war, they saw only ground combat along with the regular Marines. Four operations had been planned for their use but never were carried out. The para-marines were disbanded in 1943 -- before the middle of WW II. Parachute training, for members of all branches of the service and some foreign military personnel, is now done at the Army Parachute Training School at Ft. Benning, Georgia. It has been the main and only remaining American parachute training school since the start of WW II. I went through jump school there in April 1962, after which I served 2½ years in the 504th and then 509th Airborne units in West Germany. Some may find this film tedious, but that's where it is more realistic in its portrayal of procedures and processes during a war. Of course, ships engaged in battle and GIs fighting on front lines aren't bogged down with those things. This just shows that there is as much behind the scenes to a war as there is on the lines and on the ships squared off against the enemy. One sea battle that Wayne's Admiral Torrey is in, has some realistic looking explosions and sinking of ships. But there's not that much more by way of action.Here are some of my favorite lines in the film. For more lines of dialog, see the Quotes section under this IMDb Web page of the movie. Commander Egan Powell, "Rockwell, my boy, I tell you – never, I repeat, never marry a movie actress." Rock, "You married thee of them." Powell, "It's like eating peanuts. Once I started I couldn't stop." Rock, "Are you sure you were invited?" Egan Powell, "Maybe not, but one sailor looks like another. "Maggie, "How do admirals feel about nurses?" Rock, "The same way captains did." Bev, "Leave me with a baby this time, please, Mac."Egan Powell, "I'm so scared, my bones are clicking like dice on a Reno craps table. I should be back in Hollywood sitting in front of a typewriter making all this up for a move, not living it." Rock, "All battles are fought by scared men who'd rather be someplace else." Egan Powell, "Does that include admirals?" Rock, "Yep."CINCPAC II (Henry Fonda),"And indecision is a virus that can run through an army and destroy its will to win… or even to survive." Rock, "Just how far can I go in dealing with Admiral Broderick, sir?" "CINCPAC II, "Well, you can't kill him."Maggie, "The smiling young lady from Niger, She rode on the back of a tiger, And after the ride, she wound up inside, with her smile on the face of the tiger." This is a good film for any war film library.

. . . must have been the most botched flick ever made about the infamous Japanese Sneak Attack which drew America into World War Two. As it turns out, there's at least one film lamer than that 2001 Josh Hartnett vehicle called IN HARM'S WAY. Some Bozo Director who specialized in making B-Movies about trashy trailer park murders concocts a phony baloney version of WWII's War in the Pacific which makes BATTLESHIP look authentic by way of comparison. In this bogus martial exercise, Emporer Hirohito's boys are defeated primarily due to alcoholic rapist Kirk Douglas' moment of rash remorse. Since Kirk's suicide reconnaissance flight would not have gotten off the ground had not Nurse Annalee honor-killed herself, SHE'S the one who should get the Medal for Winning WWII. Give John Wayne's son--lost on PT 108 1/2--an asterisk for helping to motivate his fiancée Annalee to off herself, and award one of those to Wayne's senior citizen squeeze Patricia O'Neal as well for dooming her naive young charge with nursery rhymes in lieu of sensible orders and supervision. Speaking of Patty, she and "The Duke" make extramarital sex look about as exciting as shuffleboard. Hopefully, John and Pat's final Hospital Ship trysting zone has such a game up on the deck, since that will be enough of a challenge for the pair now that John's down to one leg to stand on.

This is a great World War II movie. Historically it is fairly accurate, which a lot are not. John Wayne is at his best here. Burgess Meredith does his usual excellent acting job in a supporting role. Robert Mitchum has a role as the rapist of the girlfriend of Wayne's son and then to make amends (not that you can) goes on a suicide recon run to get info is done as well as you would expect. When Wayne finally gets promoted and put in charge of an operation, he understands the political back stabbing by the sector admiral whom he by passes in the information loop. This political officer is just out for the headlines and shows up to try and steal the spotlight, with his mealy mouthed politician of an aide it is very satisfying when he ends up putting his foot in his mouth and gets embarrassed in front of the entire press corps. When Wayne sends his own son out with the PT boats on a necessary but basically fruitless attack to delay the Jap ships it shows his character's iron resolve to get the job done no matter what the cost since his only son does not come back. This is a really good movie on several planes.