Wake Island (1942)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Absolutely brilliant

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

In December 1941, after bombing Pearl Harbor, the Japanese Navy attacks an American Marine Base in the Wake Island in the Pacific. A small troop fights to defend the island aware that it is impossible to keep the position."Wake Island" is a dated movie of war propaganda with a corny story of heroism and patriotism. It is easy to understand the need of using the cinema industry to elevate the morale of the population, but presently "Wake Island" is a forgettable war movie. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "Nossos Mortos Serão Vingados" ("Our Dead Will Be Revenged")

I'm a big fan of classic movies, but Wake Island is one of those buddy-buddy wartime films that doesn't quite fall into place for me. At the onset we're treated to a cast of M.A.S.H.-like characters with their pranks and foibles and stereotyped personalities, and the rest of the movie is basically combat. True to its age, Wake Island doesn't show any of the realism in warfare - typically we see the dirt get shot several feet in front of the actor and then the actor falls over - and we are treated to the overdone jingoism of the time. They've chosen the most uncharismatic actors to portray the Japanese and dress them up rather ridiculously. The actual history of the event is grossly misportrayed.Make no mistake, this is an entertaining hour and a half to be sure. But while the story is interesting and the acting is more than capable, this film could have benefited from twenty minutes more of character development and twenty minutes less of explosions. Though nominated for Best Picture, that award rightly went to The Magnificent Ambersons.

This isn't too bad if you don't mind war time propaganda and like some of the other war movies like Bataan and Guadalcanal Diary. This one was directed by John Farrow and doesn't have any really big stars like Brian Donlevy and William Bendix. The movie starts out right before pearl harbor in which a new captain shows up, played by Donlevy, and some of the men are bored. Some of them want to leave but after Pearl Harbor they all want to stay. Then the Japanese come and start bombing 'em and they are running out of supplies fast. This movie is just like Bataan but it's hard to tell which one is better. It's a decent movie and it's great that they don't make any more wartime propaganda pictures any more.

This movie came out in the first year of the war, and I remember well seeing it at a Saturday matinée, and playing it out in our back yard, wearing a kid's version of a Marine "tin hat." I've watched it on video many times since. The movie begins well, and has good sub plots, some serious, some humorous. Donlevy is excellent as the Marine CO, and the whole cast -- Robert Preston, William Bendix, Albert Dekker, Macdonald Carey et al. -- turns in convincing performances. Director John Farrow, who saw combat in the Royal Navy at the beginning of WWII and was discharged because of wounds, develops the tension well as overwhelming Japanese forces attack the Island, to be repelled once, and then returning to overrun it in compelling combat sequences. Because it is of the era, it catches the flavor of the era perfectly, and anyone trying to do a movie about the U.S. in WWII should see it. I can only compare it to the wrong in far too many ways 2002 "Pearl Harbor" -- messing up on details such as using the "Alpha/Bravo" phonetic alphabet instead of the "Able/Baker" of WWII, getting manners and haircuts wrong and blowing up nests of more modern destroyers when the Japanese concentrated only on the battleships. Wake Island clearly has no such mistakes.