Marine Raiders ** (1944, Pat O’Brien, Robert Ryan, Ruth Hussey) – Classic Movie Review 7383

Robert Ryan in Marine Raiders (1944).

Director Harold D Schuster’s 1944 RKO Radio Pictures release Marine Raiders is a minor but intriguing wartime action movie plus romantic drama, with the emphasis on the details of Second World War troop training.

Pat O’Brien and Robert Ryan star as US Marines Major Steve Lockhard (O’Brien) and Captain Dan Craig (Ryan), who fight in Guadalcanal, then rest up in Australia where Craig (Ryan) falls for WAAAF Lieutenant Ellen Foster (Ruth Hussey) but Lockhard (O’Brien) forces him back to California to train new recruits.

The persuasive performances of a sterling cast makes something of the routine wartime propaganda heroics. Nicholas Musuraca provides some strikingly noirish black and white camerawork, refreshingly unusual in a war film, and Roy Webb’s eerily vibrant score is effective too. Future director Blake Edwards appears uncredited as a Marine.

Warren Duff’s screenplay is based on an original story by Warren Duff and Martin Rackin.

Marine Raiders also features Frank McHugh, Barton MacLane, Richard Martin, Edward Fielding, Selmer Jackson, Martha Vickers, Russell Wade, Edmund Grover, Robert Anderson, Michael St Angel, Patrick O’Moore, Harry Brown, Cliff Clark, Frank Dawson, Don Dillaway, John Elliott, William Forrest, Stanley Price and John Sheehan.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7383

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