Fighting Seabees, The (1944)

reviewed by
Brian Koller


The Fighting Seabees (1944)
Grade: 72

"The Fighting Seabees" is an entertaining, action-packed war picture. While racist and exaggerated, the film compensates for this with good dialogue and energetic direction.

John Wayne stars as Wedge Donovan, who runs a construction company hired by the Army. The workers build fortifications on war-zone pacific islands, but are continually picked off by Japanese snipers. After the construction workers have a disastrous offensive against the Japanese, Donovan is convinced by Navy brass Robert Yarrow (Dennis O'Keefe) that the workers need to be trained as soldiers. Wayne, now a Lt. Commander, leads his men into further, more successful battles.

The war battles and military politics take up about half of the film. The other half involves a romantic triangle between Donovan, Yarrow and reporter Constance Chesley (Susan Hayward). Yarrow is in love with Chesley, Chesley is in love with Donovan, and Donovan is in love with himself.

Yarrow's lack of romantic confidence results in his constantly asking Chesley whether she is in love with Donovan. Meanwhile, Chesley has to work harder and harder inventing plausible pretexts for her attention to Donovan. But Donovan coyly sidesteps Chesley's advances, and is only interested in the welfare of his workers.

William Frawley (later of "I Love Lucy" fame) has a comic relief supporting role as a construction worker. There are unlikely scenes of the flabby, middle-aged man undergoing basic training: it just doesn't look right. But his comic timing is still on target.

"The Fighting Seabees" was released during World War II. There are derogatory script references to the Japanese (they are called 'animals', 'nips', and 'bug-eyed monkeys') that are excusable only in that soldiers of that era would actually say things like that. Japanese snipers and pilots are shown grinning malevolently before firing, as if taking pleasure in killing. This revealing hatred of the Japanese helps explain why thousands of Japanese Americans were stripped of their possessions and herded into in internment camps during WWII.

kollers@mpsi.net http://members.tripod.com/~Brian_Koller/movies.html


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