Okinawa

World war two flick... made seven years later. Pat obrien is commander hale, preparing his crew and his ship to take okinawa. A sub-plot where the cook wants to shoot the guns at the japanese who moved into his family's house. Co-stars rick denning, cameron mitchell. Not a cast of youngster soldiers in this one. Keep an eye out for alvy moore! He was also the useless county agent in green acres! It's all pretty low budget. And much older guys than in most war time films. Exclusively set "on a destroyer", although even much of the action is narrated by the actors, not actually shown. Some actual wartime footage worked in. Not very suspenseful, and no action on land. And suddenly, it's over. A big mehhh..directed by leigh jason.

My Father, LCDR Frank Bernard Quady, USN, was killed aboard the USS Bunker Hill by a double kamikaze attack. For my Father, I say this movie was so bad I quit about half an hour into it.

The guy who played the sailor with the cap pulled down ridiculously was absolutely disgusting. No sailor would wear his cap on like that except possibly at home cleaning out the gutters.

Note: This guy was the "star" of the film – the part that I watched. I couldn't force myself to watch any more.

I grew up in the '50s in Coronado, CA and this movie never played there, as far as I know. I never heard of this flick.

I'll have to rent it sometime and watch only the official U.S. Navy footage, fast forwarding past the stupid sailor, whoever he is or was.

I didn't see any U.S. Naval personnel listed as advisers. They surely would have nixed it.

One more thing about the stupid sailor. He was a disgrace to all sailors. Sailors are the heart of the Navy.

This film doesn't do justice to the Battle for Okinawa. I highly recommend "Battle of Okinawa in Color".

The battle for Okinawa in the Ryukyu Islands just south of Japan, trailing off Kyushu like a jet stream was the final battle of World War II in the Pacific. Commanding the Navy Task Force was Raymond Spruance the victor at Midway and it was the largest flotilla ever put together, over 1500 ships. Not to mention the Army and Marine forces who did the fighting on land. As this was Japan's back door so to speak they fought with ferocious intensity with full use of the Kamikaze suicide planes.

The story of Okinawa needed an epic film like The Longest Day. Instead we got a hastily put together film with a lot of cliché stock characters from war films of the era. Pat O'Brien stars as the skipper of the destroyer on which this film's story is told and Richard Denning is his executive officer.

They may be top billed but O'Brien and Denning take second place in screen time to the crew of one of the naval guns on the destroyer. The crew consists of Rhys Williams, Richard Benedict, James Dobson and Cameron Mitchell who dumbed down his command of the English language to the level of Leo Gorcey. The crew is mostly sitting around waiting for the Kamikaze attacks which they know will come.

Okinawa is not a horribly bad film, but with an epic title like that it sure falls short of the mark. The Army, Navy, and Marines who fought there deserved something much better.

Yes, it was pretty bad. Overacting and cliched portrayals of how people were in that post-war period.

Surely not a credit to the career of Pat O'Brien, the star. The lack of makeup and patched scenes of the Japanese soldiers, the poor editing (seems like scenes were clipped in this surviving version), and the corny humor probably should lower my rating even more. But I got out some nostalgia pleasure recalling a simpler time when I was a small child.

And there was one other surprise.

It was a short clip when the sailors were watching a movie aboard the ship. A spectacular blonde dancer who is not credited was singing and strutting a slit dress on a stage and the guys were going crazy. I believe it was Marilyn Monroe, perhaps her first time on film. I wonder if anyone can confirm this.