image<\/span><\/a>:<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nForrest Tucker, who is also in the film, might have made a better go of playing Agar\u2019s character, but his part in the film is mainly there to initiate a fist fight with Wayne that doesn\u2019t really get resolved until Chisum 20-odd years later.<\/span><\/p>\nAlthough it\u2019s nearly half an hour before the action hits the screen it\u2019s well worth the wait. The battle sequences, despite being interspersed with stock footage of what appears to be the real fight for Iwo Jima, are quite impressive, and more realistic than previous Wayne WWII films.<\/span><\/p>\n I think it could have done without the Hollywood practise of giving someone a final word just before they die, one character who has just been shot exclaiming \u2018I\u2019ll get a good nights sleep tonight\u2019 before crumpling to the ground. On the other hand it adds to the genuine shock of Wayne\u2019s own sudden death scene because he doesn\u2019t get the chance to say anything at all. <\/span><\/p>\nOne moment he\u2019s telling everyone he feels good, the next thing he\u2019s being shot in the back by one of those nasty Nips and dying instantly.\u00a0<\/span>This realistic depiction of death is somewhat diluted by the sentimentality of Stryker\u2019s last letter to his son being read out aloud, then Agar\u2019s unconvincing acceptance of taking up Wayne\u2019s mantle.<\/span><\/p>\nHowever, all of this is compensated for in the last scene showing the flag finally being raised on Iwo Jima, which is genuinely moving and a fitting tribute to the real soldiers who died there, so overall I\u2019d have to vote this one of the better efforts of the WWII films Wayne appeared in during the 1940s.<\/span><\/p>\nIn fact I think he should have got his first Oscar for his performance as Stryker \u2013 he lost to Broderick Crawford this time around – although for my money he was even better in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.<\/span><\/p>\nComing soon to a website near you \u2013 Duke Goes to War: The WWII Films of the 1950s<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By my reckoning the first film John Wayne appeared in that touched upon the subject of the second World War was John Ford\u2019s rather melancholy The Long Voyage Home, released in 1940. The boat on which Wayne serves as a … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[6,4,23,22,102],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2562"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2562"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2575,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2562\/revisions\/2575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}