Touches You

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I don't believe I've ever seen so much stock footage interspersed with movie action before, used rather extensively here to provide an added sense of realism to the horrors of war. Some of it rather graphic too as related to men wounded and bleeding while being hauled off the battlefield.In the story, Major Daniel Kirby (John Wayne) is brought in to command the VMF 247 Wildcats stationed in Oahu, a Marine fighter squadron that presumably would have gone to Captain Carl Griffin (Robert Ryan), who for reasons that are revealed later, was passed over for promotion when the former commander was killed in action. Kirby has a battle theory of providing close air support for combat ground troops, an idea not embraced by the top brass because of the potential for friendly fire casualties.Interestingly, most of the tension in the story takes place between Kirby and Griff, who's questioning attitude of the commander's leadership calls upon the viewer to evaluate one's own feelings about the need to follow orders explicitly. Kirby's life and death battle decisions are made on the basis of achieving a greater good rather than attending to the needs of the individual, a concept that gets played out in combat situations a number of times in the story. The idea predictably comes full circle in the latter part of the picture when Griffin is faced with a difficult decision during an air battle that involves his own brother in law."Flying Leathernecks" is pretty much what you'd call a standard John Wayne vehicle in which he kicks a.. and takes names, best described by Robert Ryan's character when he admonishes his superior officer for not winning any friends among the men under his command, but certainly influencing them whether for good or ill. It's the same kind of hard boiled excess Wayne brought to other war films he appeared in, notably 1942's "Flying Tigers" and 1949's "Sands of Iwo Jima".

Major Kirby (John Wayne) takes command of a squadron of Marine fliers Wildcats. The men are undisciplined as they are sent to the Guadalcanal battle. Everybody expected the squad's best flier Captain 'Grif' Griffin (Robert Ryan) to be the new commander but Kirby finds him unable to make the tough decisions.The story is rather pedestrian wartime action. John Wayne is the hard but fair commander as his usual fare. He's a real man and the college boys are weak. He's there to make real men out of the boys. The movie is most compelling with the real color war footage. Howard Hughes paid for the Techicolor to weave in with the color footage. The action is pretty compelling and makes this more than another bland war story.

Flying Leathernecks is the 1951 retelling of the air effort in the Pacific and the fighting specifically on Guadalcanal. John Wayne plays Major Kirby a veteran fighter pilot from the Battle of Midway that takes command of a squadron with little combat experience. It is a character study of the effects of combat and war. It is interesting to see its impact on these pilots, particularly Robert Ryan's character, referred to usually as 'Griff.' Different from WWII pictures of the time, Flying Leathernecks depicts some of the harsh realities and casualties of war. Some of the characters that were developed throughout the film, some that you grow to like, are sadly the ones that are killed and injured in combat. However, the best part of the film is the friction of Major Kirby and Griff. Ultimately the tough an unrelenting attitude of Major Kirby is what develops Captain Griffin into a fine pilot and a man Kirby recommends becoming an officer. This movie is good, but is saddled by the era it was created in. For any John Wayne fan, it is of course a must watch.

The dogfights between the Marines and the Japanese in the Solomons in the movie was totally out of balance. John Wayne's squadron is send out to help destroy a Japanese convoy. On the way, they attack some Zeroes and after the dogfight, they proceed to attack the convoy with rockets and bombs.The problem is that you don't attack an opposing fighter force while you are laden down with bombs and rockets. Its is bad enough fighting the Zero without heavy ordnance; however, it would be suicidal to engage the Zero while still carrying all that stuff.Secondly, if Wayne felt that his executive was not up to task, he should have bust him and/or send him back to States. He should have also puts some documentation in the guy's file stating that the guy lack leaderships skills and therefore, should not be consider for any future promotion.On the other hand, you did have some commanders who did make hard decisions; however, they were still won the popularity contest with their men because they still show the gentler side to their men so the guys saw that they were not callous brutes and were not martinets.