The Sands of Iwo Jima, the United States Marines, and the Screen Image of John Wayne

THE SANDS OF IWO JIMA. THE UNITED STATES MARINES, AND THE SCREEN IMAGE OF JOHN WAYNE By Lawrence Suid Unlike the other films which launched the postwar movies about World War II, Sands of Iwo Jima grew out of a vacuum. Task Force (1949) was about to go into production in 1945 when the end of World War II temporarily shelved it. Battleground (1949) began as an idea in Dore Schary's mind soon after the end of the war as a means of reminding the American people that World War II had been necessary. Twelve O'clock High (1950), based on a novel of the same name, had been purchased by Twentieth Century Fox after the studio failed to acquire rights to Command, a 1947 play about the air war in Europe. By early 1948, therefore , only the Marines did not have a movie about their World War II exploits in the works. Aware of this void, Edmund Grainger, a producer at Republic Pictures, came up with the title for a film about the Marines after seeing the line "Sands of Iwo Jima" in a newspaper. Joe Rosenthal's picture of the flag raising on Mount Suribachi provided Grainger with the concept of the novie's climax. After personally writing a forty-page treatment which told the story of a tough drill sergeant and the men he leads into Datti e, Grainger hired Harry Brown to do the actual screenplay. According to the producer, Brown, a veteran Broadway writer who had previously ione the screenplay for Lewis Milestone's A Walk in the Sun (1946), did 'a brilliant job" of translating the treatment into a shooting script.' The Sands of Iwo Jima focused on a small group of men, commanded by ;ergeant Stryker, a tough, outwardly emotionless leader. Stryker molds is unit into a first rate fighting force after the usual Hollywood war Lawnence SuId' s book, Guts and Glony. Gneat American Wan Movies, Is being published In June by Addison-Wesley. This article, In nevised faonm, wilt appear as part ofa that book . 25 film personality conflicts between himself and his men. While seemingly without feelings, underneath, Stryker bears the pain of a wife who has left him because of his commitment to the Marines and of a son he doesn't know, but loves from afar. Mourning his lost son, Stryker becomes a fathe and teacher to his men, who in turn come to respect, if not love him. The film follows the sergeant and his unit through the invasions of Tarawa and Iwo Jima to the successful capture of Suribachi. As Stryker and his men take a brief rest before the final assault on the Mount, he is shot by a sniper, dying instantly, without spilt blood, as was the moviemaking style of the time. Stryker' s death only inspires his men to further action, carrying on the battle as they had been taught by their father/teacher. Edmund Grainger felt his film told the story of a crucial battle of World War II. According to the producer, Iwo Jima proved to the Japanese that they could not hold their island outposts: "If they had won there, they would have felt that they could have stood off the assault on the mainland of Japan." With the defeat on Iwo Jima, however, Grainger noted that the Japanese realized they had lost the war and could only fight defensively until they were able to negotiate a peace. Despite Grainger's views on the importance of Iwo Jima, his film ironically portrayed the battle for Tarawa in much more graphic detail. General David Shoup, winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor at Tarawa and later the Commandant of the Marine Corps, observed that most of the battle sequences in the film related to the struggle for Tarawa: "It was sort of a screwed up thing, really. The sands of Iwo Jima really didn't have anything to do with most of the film. "^ Title aside, to recreate the battles on Tarawa and Iwo Jima, Grainger sought and received extensive assistance from the Marines. His only significant obstacle to obtaining cooperation was his need to convince the Corps that Republic...