I don't believe I've ever seen so much stock footage interspersed with movie action before, used rather extensively here to provide an added sense of realism to the horrors of war. Some of it rather graphic too as related to men wounded and bleeding while being hauled off the battlefield.
In the story, Major Daniel Kirby (John Wayne) is brought in to command the VMF 247 Wildcats stationed in Oahu, a Marine fighter squadron that presumably would have gone to Captain Carl Griffin (Robert Ryan), who for reasons that are revealed later, was passed over for promotion when the former commander was killed in action. Kirby has a battle theory of providing close air support for combat ground troops, an idea not embraced by the top brass because of the potential for friendly fire casualties.
Interestingly, most of the tension in the story takes place between Kirby and Griff, who's questioning attitude of the commander's leadership calls upon the viewer to evaluate one's own feelings about the need to follow orders explicitly. Kirby's life and death battle decisions are made on the basis of achieving a greater good rather than attending to the needs of the individual, a concept that gets played out in combat situations a number of times in the story. The idea predictably comes full circle in the latter part of the picture when Griffin is faced with a difficult decision during an air battle that involves his own brother in law.
"Flying Leathernecks" is pretty much what you'd call a standard John Wayne vehicle in which he kicks a.. and takes names, best described by Robert Ryan's character when he admonishes his superior officer for not winning any friends among the men under his command, but certainly influencing them whether for good or ill. It's the same kind of hard boiled excess Wayne brought to other war films he appeared in, notably 1942's "Flying Tigers" and 1949's "Sands of Iwo Jima".
In the story, Major Daniel Kirby (John Wayne) is brought in to command the VMF 247 Wildcats stationed in Oahu, a Marine fighter squadron that presumably would have gone to Captain Carl Griffin (Robert Ryan), who for reasons that are revealed later, was passed over for promotion when the former commander was killed in action. Kirby has a battle theory of providing close air support for combat ground troops, an idea not embraced by the top brass because of the potential for friendly fire casualties.
Interestingly, most of the tension in the story takes place between Kirby and Griff, who's questioning attitude of the commander's leadership calls upon the viewer to evaluate one's own feelings about the need to follow orders explicitly. Kirby's life and death battle decisions are made on the basis of achieving a greater good rather than attending to the needs of the individual, a concept that gets played out in combat situations a number of times in the story. The idea predictably comes full circle in the latter part of the picture when Griffin is faced with a difficult decision during an air battle that involves his own brother in law.
"Flying Leathernecks" is pretty much what you'd call a standard John Wayne vehicle in which he kicks a.. and takes names, best described by Robert Ryan's character when he admonishes his superior officer for not winning any friends among the men under his command, but certainly influencing them whether for good or ill. It's the same kind of hard boiled excess Wayne brought to other war films he appeared in, notably 1942's "Flying Tigers" and 1949's "Sands of Iwo Jima".