They Were Expendable
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Bon, Holt, John Wayne, Montgomery, ReedBrand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 135 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-05-22
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of They Were Expendable
Movie Review: This movie is expendable
Summary: 2 Stars
I know I'm going to get "shot down" for criticizing this movie. It seems that anyone who dares to do so gets accused of not knowing history or not appreciating the sacrifice of those fighting the Japanese in those "bleak war years." Isn't it possible to judge this movie as a movie, without mixing it up with the actual war which it depicts? And by "judge," I mean - since this is my personal review - I want to express my honest opinion. Will anyone tell me that I should write dishonest reviews on Amazon?
I feel nothing but admiration and gratitude for all those who have sacrificed for the defense of our country and other countries. But that has nothing to do with my opinion about this movie. I didn't enjoy it. I found it mostly boring. Of the four people watching it, two fell asleep and I almost did. And the only reason my uncle did not fall asleep is because he had just had a two-hour nap before we started watching.
It was my uncle's idea to watch the film. He remembered it as "one of the best war movies ever made." But for some reason he couldn't find it at any of the libraries or movie rental places. I searched around and finally found it on VHS. I now know why it is so hard to find: too few people want to watch it!
I suspect any critical review is going to come down to the entertainment factor. This movie tells an important but neglected story about the war, about the PT boats and the hopelessly outnumbered troops in the Philippines in the wake of Pearl Harbor. But dang it all, it's just not that entertaining to watch! Watching this movie is like eating canned spinach, which is good for you, sort of. As one reviewer who gave it five stars said, it can be a bit romantic and sentimental, but I didn't mind that - though I did mind the constant patriotic music track. But then, what would you expect for a war movie made in 1945? I felt like I was watching a story about something I wanted to learn more about, but I wasn't getting enough information. If anyone ever questioned why they were being abandoned and neglected by the US Navy, the standard reply was, "That's what we've been trained to do." What does that mean? They've been trained to fight and die without any hope of support? How much did their sacrifice help the US regroup after Pearl?
There is some hokey stuff in this film. John Wayne, as Lt. "Rusty" Ryan, skipper of a PT boat, complains about being "bored to death" running messages, before war has been declared and before Pearl Harbor. Apparently he'd rather be doing something more exciting than running messages, like sinking ships and killing people. Lucky for him he gets his excitement before too long. Good times! Then there's the scene in which the PT crew manages to get some torpedoes from a visiting commander when they blackmail him about playing the leading lady role in a Naval Academy production of Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Mind you, he wasn't going to give them any torpedoes at all except for that embarrassment. As an aside, I'd sure like to know why the Academy wanted to put on a production of Tess in the first place! Is it possible that even back then there were gay men in the armed forces? I won't ask, and please don't tell!
My uncle, who had such fond memories of this film, sadly decided that it wasn't nearly as good anymore. But there is one good result from watching this movie, as we've decided to watch more classic movies together. I'm sure that many of them will hold up.
Summary of They Were Expendable
Supplies are dwindling. Troops are hopelessly outnumbered. But even in defeat there is victory. The defenders of the Philippines ? including PT-boat skippers John Brickley (Robert Montgomery) and Rusty Ryan (John Wayne) will give the U.S. war effort time to regroup after the devastation of Pearl Harbor. Director John Ford's World War II tale knows its battle-scarred topic firsthand. Montgomery was himself a Pacific PT-boat commander and a valorous Bronze Star recipient. Ford filmed the Academy Award?-winning* documentary Battle of Midway. And Wayne creates a portrait of patriotic resolve as only he can. They Were Expendable salutes all who expended themselves during some of the war's bleakest hours. Director John Ford's World War II tale knows its battle-scarred topic firsthand. Montgomery was himself a Pacific PT-boat commander and a valorous Bronze Star recipient. Ford filmed the Academy Award -winning* documentary Battle of Midway. And Wayne creates a portrait of patriotic resolve as only he can. They Were Expendable salutes all who expended themselves during some of the war's bleakest hours.They Were Expendable is the greatest American film of the Second World War, made by America's greatest director, John Ford, who himself saw action from the Battle of Midway through D-day. Yet it's been oddly neglected. Or perhaps not so oddly: for as the matter-of-fact title implies, the film commemorates a period, from the eve of Pearl Harbor up to the impending fall of Bataan, when the Japanese conquest of the Pacific was in full cry and U.S. forces were fighting a desperate holding action. Although stirring movies had been made about these early days (Wake Island, Bataan, Air Force), they were gung ho in their resolve to see the tables turned. They Were Expendable, however, which was made when Allied victory was all but assured, is profoundly elegiac, with the patient grandeur of a tragic poem.
"They" are the officers and men of the Navy's PT boat service, an experimental motor-torpedo force relegated to courier duty on Manila Bay but eventually proven effective in combat. Their commander is played by Robert Montgomery, who actually served on a PT and later commanded a destroyer at Normandy; James Agee called his "the one unimprovable performance" of 1945. In addition to giving it, Montgomery codirected the breathtaking second-unit action sequences (and took over the first unit for a week when Ford broke his leg). John Wayne's costarring role as Montgomery's volatile second-in-command initially looks stereotypically blustery, but as the drama unfolds--the death of comrades, a friendship-that-never-gets-to-be-a-romance with an Army nurse (Donna Reed)--Wayne sounds notes of tenderness and vulnerability that will take Duke-bashers by surprise.
They Were Expendable is a heartbreakingly beautiful film, full of astonishing images of warfare, grief, courage, and dignity: the artificial "rainfall" that lashes the beached Wayne as his PT boat explodes in the surf; the glow around a communally improvised dinner for nurse Reed; an old ship-repairer (Russell Simpson, The Grapes of Wrath's Pa Joad) settling in grimly to wait for the Japanese, with "Red River Valley" as benediction; the propeller spray that hangs over a jungle inlet, like the dust from one of Ford's cavalry pictures, as the PTs round a bend and disappear into history. This is a masterpiece. --Richard T. Jameson
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