'In Harm's Way' has become one of my favorite World War II dramas. I am quite happy to accept this film on Preminger's terms, for this mix of sex, love and war has more good performances and more smart writing than a bundle of other World War II movies we can think of. This film handles the outbreak of World War II from an adult perspective, with a cast of characters who are mature and experienced, and who would learn how to cope with their lives and still be involved in the war.
I believe this was Patricia Neal's first film after her stroke, and hers was a fine performance as Maggie, the nurse who pursues Rock even to the faraway South Pacific during the early stages of World War II.
As for John Wayne, I think this is one of his best and most believable roles, but he was helped by some terrific and sensitive writing, and I have no doubt that Preminger was instrumental in bringing this cast together and wringing some of their best work out of them, including from Wayne.
This film was produced 20 years after the end of World War II, and brought up certain realities of that war--the presence of self-aggrandizing but incompetent military leaders and the self-promoting politicians who joined the military with the thought that it would later enhance their careers.
It's been asked why this film didn't name the CINCPACs. I think Preminger had enough respect for the real people that their names wouldn't be mentioned in the film--this was NOT a documentary or even a story about them, the CINCPACs were only minor supporting characters for this movie. And "In Harm's Way" was not necessarily a depiction of any particular, real battles, so the place names are fictitious as well. Is Tulavon a real place? Is there a real Gava Butu? Is Cape Titan (Tai-tan) a real place. I don't think so.
The special effects were at times quite good, and sometimes truly amateurish or certainly low-budget, sometimes both at the same time particularly the on-board, below-decks smoke when ships were bombed or torpedoed. Well-produced live action involving flooding and fire, but that bogus visual effects smoke through which the scene was filtered would make you scratch your head for a moment wondering what the heck these people were thinking.
The parachuting scene clearly missed the continuity. Earlier the airborne Marine colonel, played by George Kennedy, said that it would have to be a low-level drop, but during the actual parachuting scene in the paratroop plane, the background process photography looked like they were flying at 10,000 or 15,000 feet. Either they missed that continuity or just decided to use some stock footage rather than spend money to shoot new low-altitude footage over islands simply for use in process and let it go at that. Like the bogus 'smoke' or the ship models with no people visible on deck, I can accept this kind of anomaly because the whole thing is simply worth it.
I was struck by one thing, though: during the PT boat battle and the loss of Brandon de Wilde's character's boat, the depiction was very similar to reconstructions of what happened to PT-109, John Kennedy's boat. I have no idea whether this was intentional or a coincidence.
I have watched this film on TV and probably 3 times on DVD, and I'll undoubtedly watch it again multiple times--there is so much detail to be seen that every viewing reveals something that I missed previously. And besides that, it's a rip-roaring war movie that has adult sensibilities and, overall, a remarkable screenplay and group of performances from some of the biggest film stars of the mid-'60s.
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