User Reviews

I enjoy watching war films and have seen countless films from the 30s onward to today. While this is not the best of the best, it is also far from the worst of the worst. An above-average war film.

This film is a classic Hollywood War Film made during WWII in order to uplift the nation during its darkest days, sell War Bonds, and generate the much needed support for the United States Armed Forces in a time war! To rate this film based on today's standards is to do a disservice to the film and the period. Sure, this film has all of the clichés of a typical 40s Hollywood film. But, you have to understand that this was a way for many in Hollywood who chose not serve or could not serve for various reasons to assist in the war effort. In addition, it does a very good job as portraying the Marines as the best fighters of the US Military forces, no offense intended to the other branches. The Marines are known for hitting the beaches first and leaving last.

Wallace Beery does an excellent job telling the story of the tough drill Sergeant who has passed on his skills and knowledge for thirty years waiting for his chance to see combat. He does his job well but wants what every Marine wants, to put his skills to the test.

One rarity in Hollywood is the parts of the Filipinos and Japanese fighters are not being portrayed by White Men.

In response to the Star-spangled hogwash review by Fred_Rap, I agree with Wholeben that Mr Rap's comments are out of context and unnecessarily harsh.

The film was well made and made good use of scenery. While the "green screen" scenes are obvious, the actors deliver their performances well. The weakest part may be the overly friendly competition for the Helen Bailey's affections.

The standout performance and reason to see this film is Wallace Beery's portrayal of a Marine who is a Marine regardless of whether he is in uniform. His speech after the Japanese bombing to Colonel Casper was very powerful. In addition the bar brawl against the Merchant Marines was great fun! Sergeant Major William Bailey will not allow anyone to disrespect his Marine Corps! My favorite scene in the film is the final moments with Beery in his Dress Blues sitting with his wife who has stayed behind to help instead of leaving with the other women and children. While she prayed for peace, when war came she stood by her husband and does what she can to help in his "War"!

PS: The Japanese soldiers in this film were also portrayed fairly considering when the film was made. There is even a comment made about how smart their officers are in leading their troops. While the Japanese are portrayed as being "sneaky" in using the fishing fleet to prepare for invasion this is entirely understandable considering that the Attack on Pearl Harbor happened only two years prior to the film's release.

As if the singular distinction that 'Salute to the Marines' possesses of being the only Wallace Beery vehicle ever made in Technicolor wasn't enough - especially as with a mug like his such embellishment seems rather a strange decision - this film should today also be far better known for a truly extraordinary scene near the end were the chairman of a bunch of pacifists - naturally with an English accent - responds to the attack on Pearl Harbor by fervently handing out swastika armbands and excitedly declaring "The day we've been waiting has finally arrived: Heil Hitler!!" and raising his right arm.

This scene would be perfect for inclusion in documentaries as a vivid visual illustration of the paranoid suspicion with which Americans have perennially viewed peaceniks; although considering current woke sensibilities his terms of endearment for the Japanese would doubtless cause problems.

MGM did this 1943 film in color which was rare doing wartime in those years for any studio to use. Probably 20th Century Fox filmed in color the most, still even their output was limited.

Salute To The Marines stars Wallace Beery in one of his few color features and he brings his gruff, but lovable persona into the part of a training sergeant who is stationed in the Phillipines training new recruits for jungle combat which was thought by some to be inevitable. In fact a very farsighted commandant of the Marine Corps John Lejeune determined back in the early Twenties that the Marine Corps special mission was for amphibious landings. This is what the Beery character is working at when he gets an assignment to train Filipino civilians to fight.

But a character like Beery would NEVER have been training anyone. The plot premise is that Beery, a thirty year veteran of the Corps would have missed every combat engagement in the Marines had which included Mexico, World War I, Haiti, Nicaragua etc. Now somewhere down the line he'd have been assigned some action or he wouldn't be training anyone, let alone rise to the rank of Sergeant Major.

Still train he does and his civilian trainees prove adequate to the task even though they're not the most disciplined bunch.

The climax is when the Japanese come Beery also proves adequate in fighting a delaying action after the Japanese bomb the church where he and wife Fay Bainter are attending services. This was on the same day where the Japanese were also doing a job on Pearl Harbor.

MGM did a far better film a year earlier about the Phillipine campaign and the last stand on Bataan with Robert Taylor. That one holds up far better than Salute To The Marines.

Shoehorned into the story is a kindly German store owner played by Reginald Owen who shows his true Nazi colors as the first Japanese troops land. Beery makes short work of him.

The US Marines deserved a far better film than Salute To The Marines which is a dated relic of dubious propaganda value even then.

Well, I am a fan of the Marine Corps. True, I spent my four-year military career in the Coast Guard but it was just as rugged as the Marine Corps. It was very nice to be served breakfast in bed by the attractive, blond, seventeen-year-old Swedish maids but there must be no expression in Swedish for "medium rare" because they kept fouling up the steak and eggs. But I taught the Marines at Camp Lejeune for several years and they were among the best of students. When they're sharp, they're really sharp. It's also the only service in which the officers' dress uniforms were less gaudy than the enlisted man's.

With that prologue out of the way I can now go on to say that Wallace Beery is no marine. My God, is he sloppy. His whole presence is one pile of flab upon another. He was fine as the comically sly Long John Silver but as a by-the-book top sergeant, he's plain incredible. It's almost painful, watching him rearrange the manifold dimples and gyri of his face into one or another expression.

The movie, told mostly in flashback, begins in 1941 in the Philippines. Beery's job, as it must be in all such movies, is to bear down on his men and kick them into shape, the Filipino troops included, before he retires. That impending retirement is an event he dreads because he has never won any "battle decorations." He gets his chance. He retires at the proper time but just as he's finding out that inactivity doesn't suit him the Japanese invade the Philippine Islands pari passu. The "bandy legged Nips" and "monkeys" conquer town after town, forcing all the civilians to flee ahead of them. A determined Beery struggles into his dress blue blouse, mobilizes the American and Filipino troops, and stops the enemy long enough for the women and children to escape across the bridge.

They're successful despite the bombs delivered by Japanese airplanes. The Japanese airplanes are dull-colored Vought Vindicators, an obsolete American dive bomber of the period, called disparagingly by pilots the "Vibrator" or "Wind Indicator." The Vindicator also plays itself, when American airplanes rush to the rescue of the beleaguered bridge defenders.

Fans of old movies may enjoy it. There are a lot of familiar names in the cast but you won't notice them on the screen. The kids may get a kick out of it. But it's really made for Saturday afternoons when people went to the movies and didn't really care much about what was on the screen. William Manchester -- historian, journalist, and biographer of John F. Kennedy -- claimed that he was seduced into joining the Marines after seeing the snazzy uniforms in "The Shores of Tripoli." One look at Wallace Beery wrestling to get into his tent-sized blouse, and Manchester would have joined the Coast Guard.

"Salute to the Marines" ranks as a first-class example of Technicolor World War II propaganda. The action opens and closes with the rousing Marine Corp anthem. The first thing that we see is Marines splashing ashore from transports, bailing out of a C-47, flying fighters at low altitude, and careening through the jungle in tanks. The formulaic plot occurs largely in flashbacks after the musical opening and ending gambits. Not surprisingly, MGM released "Salute" the same year it released one of its more memorable last stand sagas "Bataan" with Robert Taylor, Lloyd Nolan, and Robert Walker. In both movies, the heroes must destroy a bridge that the Japanese enemy needs to spearhead its advance, and our rough and tough leatherneck heroes perish in the process. Basically, the title tells the tale about a veteran Marine drill instructor, Sergeant-Major Bailey (Wallace Beery of "The Champ") that's spent 30 years in the Corp, but has never acquired first-hand combat experience. If there is anything that Bailey yearns for, it is to get into the thick of the shooting, so he can earn battle medals. As the storm clouds of war huddle on the horizon, his long-time friend and Commanding Officer, Colonel Mason (the great Ray Collins of "Citizen Kane"), dispatches him to train Philippine civilians, an assignment the hard-nosed, blustering hero reluctantly carries out. Thick-waisted Wallace Beery looks a mite long in the tooth to be playing such a vigorous man of action, but he delivers one of his best performances. The dressing down that he gives a Marine about shoelaces during a barracks inspection is a great scene. Look closely and you'll spot future "Dallas" TV star Jim Davis as a Marine private who butts heads with Beery's gruff sergeant-major. Watch Beery during a barroom brawl scene as he drunkenly runs one hand over his head before he wades into a crowd of Merchant Marines and throws punches, eventually knocking everybody out cold on the floor about the time that the MPs enter the saloon. When "Salute" isn't a hymn to the Marines, the filmmakers pay tribute to the valiant Philippines natives. Initially, Beery condescends to these "little fellows." Before long, however, he alters his way of thinking and grows to admire them. Check out the machete scene, and you'll see what I saying. It's a masterpiece of understatement with comedic elements. Beery trains the Phillipinos in the use of the bayonet. A villager introduces our hero to the destructive power of a machete. Berry tests it and agrees with him, so much so that he allows the native warriors to pack them as part of their regulation equipment. The Beery character is inexplicably married to a woman (Fay Bainter) who hates the Corp and pleads with Bailey to hang up his bayonet and live a quiet peaceful life in her community of peace-lovers. Meanwhile, his grown-up daughter Helen (Marilyn Maxwell of "Champion") sympathizes with him. Clearly, this community of anti-war advocates serves as a metaphor for the United States before the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Like other movies of its day, "Salute" chronicles the premeditated nature of the Asian Axis enemy. The Japanese are portrayed as subhuman vermin. The showdown between the captain of the steel-hulled Japanese fishing boat and Bailey is a classic, one-upsmanship encounter. Later, the Nipponese strafe and bomb a church during worship service. They bomb innocent, defenseless women and children. We watch in horror as a white woman running with a baby in her arms falls down between large explosives and lies strewn in the dirt dead. A Japanese tank runs over a Philippine soldier. Were that not enough, a young Robert Blake dies as the hands of the Japanese. Of course, "Salute to the Marines" isn't very politically correct now, because the Japanese are no longer our enemies. S. Sylvan Simon directs the action scenes with lean, muscular economy. "Salute to the Marines" never runs out of steam.

First of all, the Marine who forgot his extra shoelaces would have been verbally chewed out with foul language, probably a physical beating, and doing extra chores. The sergeant would not be giving any rational explanation why you should be carrying extra shoe laces. Back in those days, sergeants did not have to give any logical, practical, reasonable explanations for stuff like that. They tell you to do something,and you did it.

Like the movie The War against Mrs. Hadley, it is totally impossible for children of enlisted men and NCOs to have a relationship with officers. The same thing could be said for people of different economic backgrounds to marry each other. Let's face it America was a social class/caste system based the monetary system and political and religious ideologies. Almost all of the officers for the 19th and 20th centuries came from the upper and rich classes families. They only marry people within their social, political, and economic classes. Even today, there is no contact between the officers, NCOs, and enlisted particularly their children when they are off duty and rich people do not marry people from the lower social and economic backgrounds plus the kind of job you have. Why do you think Goucho Marx made fun of the rich people in many of his movies because he knew what they were really like (Bush, Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Rothchilds, Duponts, etc).

Om his speech the ex-sergeant told the local population, that people are sick, they see a doctor. Well, back in those days the true is many people could not afford a doctor. Doesn't that familiar today? Finally, some of the air combat scenes were used in the 1977 movie Midway starring Henry Fonda and Charles Heston. I wonder why they don't show more movies like that and the War against Ms. Hadley more often? I have never heard of them until I accidentally run across them.