Saluto militare

Salute is an early talkie directed by John Ford and it will never rank in anybody's list of great John Ford films. He honed this particular genre of military academy films down to a science in much better films like The Long Grey Line and Wings Of Eagles.

George O'Brien and William Janney are brothers raised by different grandfathers, O'Brien by a general and Janney by an Admiral and they both go to the service academies of each. O'Brien being older got to West Point before Janney arrived at Annapolis.

Janney is always playing second fiddle to O'Brien and when O'Brien puts some moves on Helen Chandler who Janney has flipped over, that makes the Army/Navy game a bit more personal than usual.

John Wayne and Ward Bond are a pair of upper classmen in Annapolis who take Janney over the coals. Best performance in the film is from Frank Albertson as Janney's smart mouth roommate.

It was interesting to see both Wayne and Bond before either of them was any kind of a name. The integration of newsreel footage of the Army/Navy game was well done by Ford, very similar to how he used newsreel film from Ireland in The Plough And The Stars. But Salute is a film for John Wayne or John Ford completists.