IN HARM'S WAY (1965)

Reminiscent, at least to me, of FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, IN HARM'S WAY also tells the story of various military personnel and their wives, husbands and lovers in Hawaii during 1941/1942.  And at 165 minutes it packs in a lot of story.

U. S. Navy Captain John Wayne is on duty during the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Kirk Douglas is his executive officer.  They manage to get their ship safely away, but other problems arise when Wayne disobeys orders while trying to track down an enemy vessel.  He's stripped of command and sentenced to desk duty.  Kirk has it even worse when he finds out that his wife was off screwing some dude on the beach during the attack and killed!  Other characters include John Wayne's estranged son who is also in the Navy and has thrown in with a seedy officer; the seedy officer himself; a nurse who's wanting to knock boots with The Duke; Burgess Meredith as Wayne's roommate; Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews and Franchot Tone as officers and the ridiculously sexy Jill Haworth as a nurse involved with both Wayne's son and Douglas.  There's also a side story about officer Tom Tyron and his wife Paula Prentiss, but it could have been cut completely.

IN HARM'S WAY is a good watch.  Most of the dramatic scenes were excellent, but unfortunately the action scenes towards the end are terribly dated and kinda boring.  The film had my total attention when Kirk and Jill were on the beach or when Wayne was making googly-eyes at Patricia Neal, but then the model boats come out with water splashing around and I felt my attention fading.  Also, IN HARM'S WAY just lacks the sheer acting power and emotional charge of FROM HERE TO ETERNITY.  That movie was dynamite!  (Yes, I wrote that in Graham Chapman's voice.)

Entertaining watch with a impressive supporting cast, but dated.  Recommended for classic movie fans.

HELLFIGHTERS (1968)

Co-star Katharine Ross might have called HELLFIGHTERS "...the biggest piece of crap I've ever done!" and James Coburn might have once called director Andrew V. McLaglen a "hack", but I thought HELLFIGHTERS was entertaining enough.

John Wayne and Jim Hutton are the two Big Kahuna's at an oil well firefighting outfit. They come across as so rugged and tough that you're almost lead to believe that they just drop their pants, saunter out to the raging inferno and club it to death with their giant raging peckers, but no they have to use actual tools like tractors, high-pressure water cannons and nitroglycerin (to displace the oxygen feeding the fire). The firefighting scenes are exciting and the fires themselves are huge, but the funniest part of the movie is the women in their lives. Wayne's wife, well, ex-wife left him years ago (even though she's still in love with him) because she was just too goddamn scared that Wayne was going to get killed.  Haha. And as fate would have it Jim marries Wayne's daughter! So now for the rest of the movie both women sit on the sidelines and worry nonstop about these two firefighting superstuds they're in love with. I found this to be hilarious.

Sexist subplot aside the firefighting scenes were dramatic, well shot and educational (I had no idea how they put out oil well fires). Worth a watch...as long as you have a sense of humor. I would actually like to see a more realistic and grittier remake of this film.

Fun Fact: McLaglen went on to direct the legendary bad movie MITCHELL that was immortalized for all time by MST3K. "Baby oil?! NO!!!!"

Good grief.