Sands of Iwo Jima (1949)

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General		Extras
Category	War	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1949
Running Time	105:23
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (62:49)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Programme
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Allan Dwan
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	John Wayne John Agar Adele Mara Forrest Tucker Wally Cassell James Brown Richard Webb Arthur Franz Julie Bishop James Holden Peter Coe Richard Jaeckel William Murphy
Case	?
RPI	$24.95	Music	Victor Young

    This is an old-fashioned war movie from back in the days when, well, it wasn't old-fashioned. Inspired by the famous photograph of Marines raising the Stars and Stripes on the eponymous island, the bulk of this film takes place elsewhere: at training camp in New Zealand and on Tarawa, where the Marines get their first taste of fighting.

    John M. Stryker (John Wayne, of course) is a tough Marine sergeant, a veteran of Guadalcanal, or "the Canal" as he calls it, is given a bunch of raw recruits and misfits to train into a fighting force. There's Thomas (Forrest Tucker), the ex-boxer with whom Stryker has a history and Conway (John Agar) whose late father served with Stryker but who has a huge chip on his shoulder. There are a couple of brothers who are always fighting, and various token ethnic characters, as there always seems to be in war films of the era. And this era too, for all that.

    Stryker has his own dark history - a failed marriage and a 10 year old boy who doesn't answer his letters. He seems to want to have Conway, the son of his friend, as a surrogate son, but Conway doesn't want a bar of it. Conway marries a New Zealand girl (Adele Mara). She comes from that part of NZ where everybody speaks with an American accent.

    Despite the lack of sophistication in the story, this is actually a pretty good film. Wayne gives one of his better performances, although the Oscar nomination for this role seems a bit far-fetched. The battle scenes are exciting and mostly realistic (the Japanese are as always poor shots), with interpolated actual combat footage from Tarawa and Iwo Jima. There is one disturbing sequence showing a burning corpse that may be confronting for some viewers. The direction by veteran Allan Dwan (who had been making films since the 1910s) is not bad. Allowances need to be made for some of the dialogue, for example when the Japanese are referred to as "lemon-coloured characters", which would not pass muster these days.

    A reasonable entertainment which will appeal to Wayne fans and those who enjoy good war films.

Video

    The film is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, close to the original aspect ratio of 1.37:1.

    The image is quite sharp, which is good seeing that the film has not been restored. Shadow detail is satisfactory, and generally there is a fair bit of detail present, though for mine it is slightly lacking and backgrounds are a little blurry.

    Being a black and white film, there is only a palette of shades ranging through the grey spectrum available. Blacks are dark enough and while there are no clean whites, the image looks reasonable.

    Apart from a couple of minor instances of aliasing, and some edge enhancement, there were no significant film to video artefacts present.

    There are, however, a lot of film artefacts, including dirt, white specks, scratches and the like. It is a pity that the print was not cleaned up before being transferred.

    English subtitles are available, and are clear and readable and generally faithful to the spoken word from the brief sample I made.

    This is an RSDL-formatted disc with the layer change positioned at 62:49 at a cut between shots, and is not really disruptive.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The default audio channel is English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono, with a French alternative available.

    The audio is good for a film of this era. This is not high-fidelity, but it accurately reflects the original cinema experience, complete with minor hiss and occasional harshness. Actually, it is a bit more harsh than it should be, but the ear quickly adjusts.

    The patriotic score is by Victor Young, who seamlessly weaves the Marine hymn into the music, without going over the top. It scrubs up pretty well in this transfer.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    None.

    Reviews of the US Region 1 DVD are mixed in terms of the video quality, with only one reviewer seeing the same issues with debris that I saw. Make of that what you will. The Region 1 has an 18-minute making of documentary hosted by Leonard Maltin containing interviews with several cast members, all of whom are now deceased and some of these must have been made some time ago. There is also a theatrical trailer.

    The extras make the Region 1 the more desirable release, if extras are your thing.

    A fine and highly successful Marine recruiting film, with a star performance from John Wayne.

    The video quality is good but could have been better.

    The audio quality is good.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall