Fresh and Exciting

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

I couldn't watch any more of the movie as soon as Tommy Sands opened his mouth to deliver his lines! Could not care less about the theme or message of this movie. Was not going to waste my time watching "nails on chalkboard" acting.

Stranded on a remote Japanese occupied island, a group of US marines consider a truce in this daringly different 60s World War II movie from the directing hand of Frank Sinatra. 'None But the Brave' would be Sinatra's only stint behind the camera, which is a shame as he shows more finesse as a filmmaker than actor here. The film's structure is fascinating as it spends equal time on depicting both US and Japanese sides. Sinatra also allows his Japanese actors to speak in Japanese with English subtitles, avoiding the awkwardness of foreign characters speaking Broken English to each other. There is a particularly effective sequence in which Sinatra crosscuts between Japanese and American troops between addressed at the same time, highlighting the similarities in approach between sides. As a neutral American-made World War II movie with nifty editing, 'None But the Brave' has nothing on 'Beach Red', which would come out two years later, but it is still an admirable effort. Better characters and acting may have helped. Tommy Sands often seems to get chided for his performance, but none of the actors (including Sinatra himself) offer much dimension - not that doing so would be easy since most of the characters are interchangeable. Then again, the film was probably never intended to be character-driven in the first place, and by not having a plethora of protagonists to sympathise with and like, it is easier appreciate the conundrum at hand. Do wartime conditions really still exist on an island cut off from the rest of the world? It is food for thought.

On the face of it this is about as simplistic as it gets. Frank Sinatra had already made one plea for tolerance via the short film The House I Live In for which he received a 'special' Oscar and now, exactly twenty five years later, he says much the same thing as a director. Perhaps perversely he himself is the only major Hollywood actor to be seen and surrounds himself with Bush League talent like Clint Walker, Tony Bill, Brad Dexter and his then son-in-law Tommy Sands. This disparate group crash land on a Pacific island inhabited by a forgotten Japanes platoon during World War Two. Essentially the two groups learn that they are all human beings and make a pretty good fist at co-existing until the inevitable day when the outside world intrudes with senseless killing only a heartbeat behind. Simplistic it may be but it does offer a message well worth peddling.

On a tiny forgotten island in the Pacific, there a tiny and forgotten Japanese outpost--with men who'd become stuck there with no great hope of rescue. Into this tiny place arrives a crashing airplane filled with US Marines. When they land, hostilities naturally break out between the groups. However, after a while they realize that killing each other will solve nothing and they have to work together to survive--forging an uneasy peace and friendship between enemy combatants.NONE BUT THE BRAVE is a film that is a real product of the times. Had anyone wanted to make such a film in the 1940s, they might just have been strung up for the film's very unusual sensibilities. Unlike older war films, in this one the Japanese are humanized a great deal and it's obvious that the film was made during the anti-war 60s (though early in the anti-war years). In many ways, this is a good thing--showing that people on both sides could be decent. Though in some ways the whole thing seemed a bit hard to believe--after all, very, very few Japanese officers would have admitted to not having faith in the war--this was a very 1960s sentiment.As for the acting, it was generally good. Clint Walker was clearly the star, though Frank Sinatra had a decent co-starring role in this film that he both produced and directed. The Japanese actors also were pretty good. The only weak point was the way Tommy Sands' character was written--he was like a one-dimensional caricature instead of a real soldier. No young lieutenant is THAT obnoxious and stupid!! Overall, an entertaining film but one that strains credibility, as the concept behind the film just doesn't make much sense for the 1940s. Still, if you can stop those voices in your head from complaining about the plot, it's a good and very different movie.