Marine d'abord!

Lon Chaney is simply fantastic as a Marine Sergeant who puts a screw-off new recruit (William Haines) through boot camp, and then guides him through some action overseas in China afterwards. The two men are also involved in a little love triangle with a young nurse (Eleanor Boardman). It's a great cast, with the exception of Carmel Myers as an island girl, and the film has a reasonable amount of authenticity running through it. It was shot in part at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego with consultation from a General, and there are also nice scenes on the USS California, whose big guns surprised me a little for 1926. I was entertained by the mix of humor, romance, and drama which is all somewhat quirky and fitting to the period, though unfortunately the scenes in China reek of cultural condescension. It's probably unfair to the film, but in part it was less interesting to me just because I've seen the boot camp part of the story done so many times over the years, though apparently this was the prototype. The template is complete to the point of ushering in the new class of recruits in the same way at the end. Watch it for Lon Chaney though. Man, I'd probably watch him in just about anything.