The Leathernecks Have Landed

The Leathernecks Have Landed has Lew Ayres, Jimmy Ellison, and Maynard Holmes as three hell raising US Marines who have been ordered with their outfit to China duty. Once there destiny takes a hand with each one of them.

Ayres is the leader in the hellraising, Ellison people are eying for a commission if he can keep out of trouble, and Holmes is their good natured roly poly pal. After a final warning to Ayres about all his carousing, Ayres gets himself involved in a barroom brawl with J. Carrol Naish and Holmes takes a bullet for him.

That gets Ayres drummed out of the corps and stuck in China. He settles things with Naish, but then gets himself involved in the racket that Naish was involved, gun-running to bandits. From there you have to see the film for yourself.

Real life pacifist Lew Ayres scores nicely as a devil may care marine who does redeem himself in the end, did you really think he wouldn't? There's also a nice part for Isabell Jewell as the slang talking dame from Brooklyn stuck in Shanghai. We never get the full details about how Jewell got to Shanghai, but I'm sure it would make an interesting movie unto itself. I'm guessing Veda Ann Borg wasn't available for a typical Veda Ann Borg part.

Nothing terribly special here, decent action film from Republic which apparently hadn't decided quite yet that westerns were to be their bread and butter.