They Were Expendable / Flying Leathernecks [DVD]

Follow up was excellent!

John Wayne is awesome. Good story good acting. If you like John Wayne or good war movies this is for you.

THEY WERE EXPENDABLEMaybe because I was just a little kid, and the war was still raging, (1945) but nearing an end. Maybe it was partially because my grandfather took me to see this movie as he took me to see other movies every Saturday, and maybe it was because my Polio was gone and I could walk and run again, but mostly because my uncle was the skipper of a PT boat and knew JFK. Great Direction by John Ford, with his regular crew plus Robert Montgomery, (John Wayne, Donna Reed, Ward Bond) and many other great stars gave outstanding performances in an authentic, tropic ambiance displayed convincingly, though in Black and white.The missions, struggles, disappointments, amiable characters just doing a very tough, under-appreciated job in plywood PT boat's which the navy and marines didn't entirely trust.The secondary question was; would Monty and The Duke bring home a winner, or switch to submarines?This is a short intro of the coming of age of a PT boat fleet, the hopelessness that hung like a black cloud of Damocles just above the heads of the officers and grunts in what then seemed a losing effort, but one in which they kept grinding on with the stiff-upper lip, hard bitten, toughness of ordinary men and women doing extraordinary things.At this point in the war, the US was not yet winning, and beneath the surface the fighting men and women worried, more about whose fate was unknown than themselves. The milieu and attitudes of the characters gave one a feeling of what it really must have been like in those dark times. When my uncle came back from action a year later, he said it was one of his favorite war films-authentic and revealing.FLYING LEATHERNECKSThe second film, made in 1951, which was filmed in Technicolor, Flying Leather Necks, directed by Nicolas Ray and starring Wayne, Robert Ryan and an excellent supporting cast, was a typical fighter pilot film, well done, filled with the conflicts, misunderstandings, emotional struggles with tensions of death and mistakes and orders which are hard to follow at times. A good film but less of a classic than the Black and white above. Besides all of that, one Great film, one good film and a terrific price. By the way, this movie borrows just a bit of its plot from a 1938 Howard Hawks directed, Errol Flynn, vehicle: Dawn Patrol. The rankling relationship of Wayne with Robert Ryan, is almost parallel to Flynn's relationship to his commanding officer, Basil Rathbone. Except in this film, the roles are reversed. Here, the leading man, Wayne is the commander, and Ryan his second in command. However, in Dawn Patrol, the underling, Flynn is the leading man and co-star Rathbone his commander.

A very good WWII war story with an excellent cast, including Debbie Reynolds.

Each movie is complete and in excellent shape as if they were filmed and pressed yesterday. I was extremely impressed with the special insights we can see into the specific nature of the type of warfare and the service people that were involved in each movie."They Were expendable": This introduces the specifics of PT Boat naval warfare in WW2 in the Pacific theater in the lives of those who participated and the practices and personal sacrifices and actions that took place to make our service in that effort and made us successful."Flying Leathernecks": This also gives us a great introduction into the specifics of aerial warfare in WW2, also in the pacific theater and gives us a pretty fair look into the lives of those who took part and their families sacrifices while the war was going on.All in all, this DVD offers us great insight adorned with educational satisfaction with reality exposed into these 2 special groups of our freedom fighters during extremely trying times for America.

My Father-in-Law was a supply Sgt in the Wildcats in WWII and I went to one of their reunions in 1972 in St Paul MN. They were very proud men and very loyal. I know they were very proud of this movie. Some of the footage in the movie was original from the war used in the green screen background. Also, it is important to preserve the culture of the time, which this movie does a good job from 1951. My son did not know his grandfather, but this is a way for him to know what he did in a small way. My own father was too old to be in combat so he had to be a guard at Santa Anita racetrack guarding imprisoned American Japanese. My father was not very proud of what he had to do. They will never make a movie about what he had to do other than the shame of it.

I’ve had this movie “Flying Leathernecks” in VHS and on DVD for many years. This is the best copy I’ve ever owned. John Wayne is the best! I would highly recommend any fan to buy this DVD !

Attached please see a few actual still frames extracted from the video, not screen shots! The video quality is awesome, this is a true bluray and not just an "upscaled DVD" of the older release. I am very happy, one of my favorite movies! Audio is clean and of good volume. Very glad I got it!

Another excellent john wayne film

Delivered really quickly, great film last seen when I was a child in black & white on TV! Never realised it was in colour.

a very good film come in very good time

I am very happy with this item.

Great