" . . . we're fighting ANIMALS!" intones a U.S. military officer near the beginning of THE FIGHTING SEABEES. The current packaging for this 1944 film emphasizes the widely known fact that our U.S. War Department censors dictated every thought, word, and deed presented on screen by American movie studios from 1942 through 1945--especially the current event war dramas intended to boost morale on the Front Lines, as well as on the Home Front. The idea that America's Enemy in the South Pacific is some sort of sub-human creature (not unlike the Orcs in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middlearth Saga) is fleshed out during the Japanese attack on our valiant Seabees near the end of this story, when the demonic leering gargoyle-like visages of the lead tank crew are shown in close-up. No doubt the hideous jackal grimaces displayed here sent many of the younger 1940s movie goers home to nightmares. It's small wonder that the lead Seabee here, played by John Wayne, is no match for those declared to be barbaric beasts at best by the U.S. government. Both Wayne and the gal who loves him get gunned down by heartless Japanese snipers by the end of THE FIGHTING SEABEES.
The message of this movie, then and now, is clear. You cannot have our leaders telling it like it is for five (or fourteen) years, and then suddenly capriciously turn on a dime and make out like everything's now Sweetness & Light, Peaches & Cream, FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS & LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA, Let-Bygones-Be-Bygones, it was all a big misunderstanding, let's just forget about it. John Wayne does not equate Abraham Lincoln with Adolph Hitler in ANY of his films. History is full of heroes and villains. We must never forget which is which. As UNBROKEN proved last Christmas, THE RAILWAY MAN should have driven the stake through the vampire's heart when he had the chance. It took millions of Americans to win WWII, and now nearly all of them are dead from Japanese snipers (as documented in THE FIGHTING SEABEES) or from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder disease. Show THE FIGHTING SEABEES to your family each Pearl Harbor or VJ Day. Better yet, run it by them on both!
The message of this movie, then and now, is clear. You cannot have our leaders telling it like it is for five (or fourteen) years, and then suddenly capriciously turn on a dime and make out like everything's now Sweetness & Light, Peaches & Cream, FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS & LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA, Let-Bygones-Be-Bygones, it was all a big misunderstanding, let's just forget about it. John Wayne does not equate Abraham Lincoln with Adolph Hitler in ANY of his films. History is full of heroes and villains. We must never forget which is which. As UNBROKEN proved last Christmas, THE RAILWAY MAN should have driven the stake through the vampire's heart when he had the chance. It took millions of Americans to win WWII, and now nearly all of them are dead from Japanese snipers (as documented in THE FIGHTING SEABEES) or from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder disease. Show THE FIGHTING SEABEES to your family each Pearl Harbor or VJ Day. Better yet, run it by them on both!