'Gung Ho!': The Story of Carlson's Makin Island Raiders (1943)

User Rating:

6.1/10   

Director:

Ray Enright

Writers:

W.S. LeFrançois (story)
Lucien Hubbard (screenplay)

Release Date:

20 December 1943 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | History | War

Tagline:

Battle cry of the Marine raiders!

Plot:

The true story of Carlson's Raiders and their World War II attack on Makin Island.

Plot Keywords:

Island | Pearl Harbor | Submarine | Revenge | Stock Footage

US TV Schedule:

Tue. July 21

6:00 AM

TCM

Cast

Randolph Scott	...	Colonel Thorwald
Alan Curtis	...	John Harbison
Noah Beery Jr.	...	Cpl. Kurt Richter
J. Carrol Naish	...	Lieutenant C.J. Cristoforos
Sam Levene	...	Leo 'Transport' Andreof
David Bruce	...	Larry O'Ryan
Richard Lane	...	Captain Dunphy
Walter Sande	...	'Gunner' McBride
Louis Jean Heydt	...	Lieutenant Roland Browning
Robert Mitchum	...	'Pig-Iron' Matthews
Rod Cameron	...	Rube Tedrow
Grace McDonald	...	Kathleen Corrigan
Milburn Stone	...	Cmdr. Blake
Peter Coe	...	Kozzarowski
Harold Landon	...	Frankie Montana

Also Known As:

Gung Ho! (USA) (short title)

Runtime:

88 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Backlot, Universal Studios - 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, USA

Company:

Universal Pictures

Trivia:

Actor Harold Landon, who plays Frankie Montana in the film, relates that the actors who played Japanese soldiers were actually Filipino and Chinese.

Goofs:

Factual errors: When three Japanese try to surrender and then ambush the Marines. One of the Marines returns fire. He is using a M-1 Garand rifle, which only holds eight rounds. He fires at least 12 shots.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Loose Women (1996)

Cruel and powerful for that time

Everybody has already watched lots of war films where good soldiers go fight the bad guys in some other country because of something terrible these bad guys have done, right? Right! This is "Gung Ho!"! But please keep calm, you who like this movie! This is just a small joke about this kind of film. "Gung Ho!" was made in 1943, so years before of many of movie pictures like it. Actually, it's one of the first war movies ever made, and, like "Guadalcanal Diary" (1943), mas made when the II World War was still going on. At that time, war movies wasn't so common, so "Gun Ho!" has nothing of cliché. To cut it short, this film is good and kind of original. And it's also like a document since it was done under the real atmosphere of war. The movie is American and was done after the Pearl Harbor attack, so the hate for the Japanese was strong.

In the story, a group of soldiers is called to go on a special mission that is attacking a Japanese island as an answer for the tragedy in Pearl Harbor. The soldiers are selected one by one, through an interview where they end up talking about their personal lives, and makes us feel close to them and feel sorry for them as the film goes on and they start suffering and unfortunately passing away. "Gung Ho!" is a good film, even today, 62 years after it was made. I imagine the impact and the shock it caused in 1943, when it was released...

My rate 7/10