***
Sands of Iwo Jima- nf – I first saw this movie as an 11 or 12 year old boy and the memory of it has vividly stayed with me to the point where I exactly remembered the tragic ending. I could not resist watching it when it was unexpectedly offered to me as I was checking my email and I just happened to have the time to see it. It stars John Wayne who was nominated for an Academy Award for this movie. He plays the tough Marine Sergeant Styrker who has the task of whipping a bunch of recruits in shape to fight the Japanese in World War II. By now so many parts of the storyline can be considered cliché but they were very real when the movie was made and shown just four years after the end of the war. There was the soldier not getting a letter from home, or getting one, the marine who was son of the tough Colonel who had died, the recruit who tried to disguise that he was 17 and lied to get into the Marines, the USO dance when the marines were on leave, accidentally dropping a hand grenade during training and a hero intervening to throw it away, a marine being made to do extra practicing of his bayonet skills, hitting the beaches under attack, being ordered to “ lock and load “ as they got off the landing craft, marines being shot as they charged on the beach, calling for “ Medic” and a Jewish marine reciting the “Shama Yisrael” prayer before he died after being shot, which of course hit home to me. To a young kid of my generation this movie was typical of the war stories with which we identified and wondered how would we have faired if we fought in the Great War. There were no computer-generated images in this black and white movie. There was actual footage of the real assault on Iwo Jima and I read that there 2000 real marines used as extras in the movie. The actual flag raised on Iwo Jima was used in the scene which reenacted the famous raising of the flag on Mount Suribachi which was captured in the iconic photograph by Joe Rosenthal. I also read that two of the marines that were there in the photograph participated in that part of the film. So for me the visit to this film was a great piece of nostalgia and meaningful history. (1949)