Whether you're looking for news and entertainment, thinking of joining the military or keeping up with military life and benefits, has you covered. Keep Up With the Best in Military Entertainment If you haven’t heard of it before, there’s a reason. He works his way back to health, becomes a successful Hollywood screenwriter and rejoins the Navy for World War II and comes up with the idea of “jeep carriers,” smaller craft that follow bigger ships into combat.įord was friends with the real-life Wead, and this movie was a tribute. Wayne plays real-life Naval aviator Spig Wead, who serves in World War I and tries to convince his superior officers that air combat is the real future of warfare.Īfter he’s promoted to squadron commander, Wead falls down a flight of stairs, breaks his neck and wakes up paralyzed. This barely counts as a war movie, and it’s probably the worst of the movies that Wayne made with director John Ford. Wayne gets to dig a bit deeper as an actor than he’s usually asked to, have the most convincing romantic encounter he ever played in a movie and Douglas gives one of his most intense performances in a career full of teeth-clenchingly great roles. It’s all a bit overheated, but that’s why it’s great. Eddington commits a shocking act of violence and betrayal, but the movie redeems him in an act of combat heroism. Kirk Douglas co-stars as Rock’s buddy, Paul Eddington, a Navy officer of alarming volatility. Torrey’s got a romance with divorced Navy nurse Lt. Rock Torrey was married to the Navy, so he divorced his wife and abandoned his son, Jeremiah (Brandon de Wilde). Otto Preminger’s movie is a giant soap opera tale of Navy politics.

Pete Mitchell for “Top Gun: Maverick.” Think about that one. Yet, Wayne is younger in this movie than Tom Cruise is now as he brings back Capt. Rock Torrey, a Navy officer whose career went off track after he disobeyed orders to chase a Japanese submarine after Pearl Harbor and got his boat torpedoed. You might think Wayne was getting too old to play the lead role as Capt.

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