Flying Leathernecks (1951)

Sadly Over-hyped

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Good movie but grossly overrated

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

The Duke is a tough (of course) 'you-do-what-you-gotta-do' Major in the Marine Corp VMF-247 'Wildcats" squadron stationed (at the beginning of the film) on Guadalcanal. His 2nd in command is Robert Ryan, who is slowly cracking under the strain of being responsible for the young pilots' lives. The rest of the cast play the usual war movie characters (the scrounger, the hotshot, the steady guy, the new guy, the nervous guy, Doc, etc.) who get thinned out more than usual for a 'pro war', military supported film. The film was shot in Technicolor and incorporates a lot of authentic footage of air action in the Pacific theater. Admittedly, the footage is a mix of times and places (some is from the Korean war), tends to be repetitive, and is not always well integrated with the new material; but it is still exciting to watch, especially if you are keen on military aircraft (although most of the planes used in the production are not true to the period/events). Like most war films of the era, things slow to a crawl when the action moves state-side, and the scenes with a too-old John Wayne bonding with his family can be skipped without missing much. The film is also surprisingly bloody at times and some of the actual footage of war dead is quite grim. Not great but not bad - fans of WWII planes or the Duke will be in heaven, other viewers will be entertained, and people who dislike a 'pro-war' message probably won't watch it.

This RKO production is good considering that the studio was on life support by this time. Often in the film you can tell where the stock combat footage from news reels of the war are thrown in by the fuzzy quality of the scenes. There is a noticeable mix, particularly when you see the film commercial free on TCM.To me, Robert Ryan and Flippin have the strongest performances. John Wayne has pretty much his usual tough guy image that is as tough as nails. What is impressive is RKO putting a lot into the Technicolor look of the movie. You can see Wayne sweating at times.The story is pretty much standard - tough as nails commander keeping his subordinates at bay while his unit draws the dirty work. Meanwhile, he has a wife & son at home & a Sargeant (Flippin) who is really good at midnight requisitions. Obviously this is the usual Wayne all American hero type of vehicle he had been doing since the war and would do until near the end of his career.

I'm a Fan of Westerns and during watching this movie I was several times thinking that this could be a good Cavalry Western. One of the reasons was the Gabby (or Fuzzy) like funny Sidekick with the typical Hat. Replace the Japanese with Indians and the planes with horses and you'll have John Wayne as Cavalry Officer. But this time he is Major Kirby Head of a Marine Flying Squadron in the Pacific during World War 2. This time the footage scenes didn't fit very well into the movie. So the Action Scenes are looking poor. There are some nice photographed scenes and some scenes just didn't work. I liked the scene in which a camp was bombed. Maybe the violent scenes with blood were shocking for this time but for today's standard there are not mentionable. At least it's a War Movie so why shouldn't the Audience see the blood. I enjoyed watching John Wayne and Robert Ryan. Ryan is a fairly good actor and John Wayne somehow reprises his role he had in "Sands of Iowa Jim". Unfortunately this time the role isn't as good scripted as in other John Wayne Movies. Also there is an emotional conflict between those two protagonists but the flame is very low. To low for me I liked to see more of the conflict and wished both characters had better scripted clashes together.For today's standards Flying Leathernecks looks poorly made and compared to other War Movies round that period it's outdated. IMO the Movie was a bit better than average mostly because of the Acting of the two stars.

My angle on this film echoes some other posters who have a historical take on the film of which the most glaring inaccuracy is F6F Hellcats substituting for F4F Wildcats. The grainy combat footage was irritating and other WW-II films shot during wartime or shortly post wartime have been far more creative and sparing when possible in integrating stock combat footage in tandem with its own filmed footage, but the production simply appeared to not care about continuity in this regard.Not one of the best John Wayne WW-II films but not a complete slouch either, but as other posters noted, is fairly derivative of previous Wayne outings in term of his character in films such as 'Sands of Iwo Jima'.A decent but sluggish Wayne film in comparison to other Pacific theater films, the technical inaccuracies of 'Flying Leathernecks' definitely soured my enjoyment of this film.