''The Fighting Seabees'' is a 1944

war film War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about navy, naval, air force, air, or army, land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been strongly associated with the 20th century. The fateful nature of battle s ...

, directed by

Edward Ludwig Edward Irving Ludwig (October 7, 1899 – August 20, 1982) was a Russian-born American film director and writer. He directed nearly 100 films between 1921 and 1963 (some under the names Edward I. Luddy and Charles Fuhr). Ludwig was also one ...

and starring John Wayne and Susan Hayward. The supporting cast includes

Dennis O'Keefe Dennis O'Keefe (born Edward Vanes Flanagan, Jr., March 29, 1908 – August 31, 1968) was an American actor and writer. Early years Born in Fort Madison, Iowa, O'Keefe was the son of Edward Flanagan and Charlotte Flanagan, Irish vaudevill ...

William Frawley William Clement Frawley (February 26, 1887 – March 3, 1966) was an American vaudevillian and actor best remembered for playing landlord Fred Mertz in the American television sitcom '' I Love Lucy'', "Bub" O'Casey in the television comedy ser ...

, Leonid Kinsky, Addison Richards and

Grant Withers Granville Gustavus Withers (January 17, 1905 – March 27, 1959) was an American film actor who acted under the screen name Grant Withers. With early beginnings in the silent era, Withers moved into sound films, establishing himself with a lis ...

. ''The Fighting Seabees'' portrays a heavily fictionalized account of the dilemma that led to the creation of the U.S. Navy's " Seabees" in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. At the

17th Academy Awards The 17th Academy Awards were held on March 15, 1945 at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, honoring the films of 1944. This was the first time the complete awards ceremony was broadcast nationally, on the Blue Network ( ABC Radio). Bob Hope hosted th ...

, the film received a nomination for Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture for

Walter Scharf Walter Scharf (August 1, 1910 – February 24, 2003) was an American musician, best known as a film, television and concert composer and arranger/conductor. Biography Broadway theatre Born in Manhattan, he was the son of Yiddish theatre comic B ...

and Roy Webb but the award went to

Max Steiner Maximilian Raoul Steiner (May 10, 1888 – December 28, 1971) was an Austrian composer and conductor who emigrated to America and went on to become one of Hollywood's greatest musical composers. Steiner was a child prodigy who conducted ...

for ''

Since You Went Away ''Since You Went Away'' is a 1944 American epic drama film directed by John Cromwell for Selznick International Pictures and distributed by United Artists. It is an epic about the American home front during World War II that was adapted and p ...

''.

Plot

"Wedge" Donovan ( John Wayne) is a tough construction boss, building airstrips in the Pacific for the U.S. Navy during World War II. He clashes with his liaison officer, Lieutenant Commander Robert Yarrow (

), over the fact that his men are not allowed to arm themselves against the

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

. When the enemy lands in force on the island, Donovan’s men want to help fight. Donovan initially tries to dissuade them, but after a Japanese fighter kills or wounds several workers, he changes his mind and leads his men into the fray. This prevents Yarrow from springing a carefully devised trap that would have wiped out the invaders in a murderous

machine gun A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) ar ...

crossfire, with minimal American losses. Instead, many of Donovan's men are killed unnecessarily. As a result of this tragedy, Yarrow finally convinces the US Navy to form Construction Battalions (CBs, or the more familiar "Seabees") with Donovan's assistance, despite their mutual romantic interest in war correspondent Constance Chesley ( Susan Hayward). Donovan and many of his men enlist and receive formal military training. The two men are teamed together on yet another island. The Japanese launch a major attack, which the Seabees barely manage to hold off, sometimes using heavy construction machinery such as bulldozers and a clamshell bucket. When word reaches Donovan of another approaching enemy column, there are no sailors left to oppose this new threat. In desperation, he rigs a bulldozer with explosives on its blade, intending to ram it into a

petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...

storage tank. The plan works, sending a cascade of burning liquid into the path of the Japanese, who retreat in panic, right into the sights of waiting machine guns. However, Donovan is shot in the process and dies in the explosion.

Cast

* John Wayne as Lt. Cmdr. "Wedge" Donovan * Susan Hayward as Constance Chesley *

as Lt. Cmdr. Robert Yarrow *

as Eddie Powers *

Leonid Kinskey Leonid Kinskey (1893/1894 – September 8, 1998) was a Russian-born American film and television actor, best known for his role as "Sascha" in the film ''Casablanca'' (1942). His last name was sometimes spelled Kinsky. Life and career Kinskey ...

as Johnny Novasky * J.M. Kerrigan as Sawyer Collins *

as Whanger Spreckles * Paul Fix as Ding Jacobs *

Ben Welden Ben Welden (born Benjamin Weinblatt; June 12, 1901 – October 17, 1997) was an American character actor who played a wide variety of Damon Runyon-type gangsters in various movies and television shows. Early years Welden was born in Toledo, Oh ...

as Yump Lumkin * William Forrest as Lt. Tom Kerrick * Addison Richards as Capt. Joyce * Jay Norris as Joe Brick *

Duncan Renaldo Renault Renaldo Duncan (April 23, 1904 – September 3, 1980), better known as Duncan Renaldo, was a Romanian-born American actor best remembered for his portrayal of The Cisco Kid in films and on the 1950–1956 American TV series ''The Cisco Ki ...

as Construction worker at party * Wally Wales as Lt. Cmdr. Hood

Production

''The Fighting Seabees'' had the biggest budget in Republic's history, $1.5 million.
'' Variety (magazine), Variety'', Volume 150, Number 4, April 7, 1943, p. 6. The film was completed in collaboration with the US Navy and the US Marine Corps, and took place on several bases in California ( Camp Hueneme and

Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton is the major West Coast base of the United States Marine Corps and is one of the largest Marine Corps bases in the United States. It is on the Southern California coast in San Diego County and is bordered by O ...

), Virginia (

Camp Peary Camp Peary is an approximately 9,000 acre U.S. military reservation in York County near Williamsburg, Virginia. Officially referred to as an Armed Forces Experimental Training Activity (AFETA) under the authority of the Department of Defense, ...

) and Rhode Island ( Camp Endicott). Principal photography took place from September 20 to early December 1943. The bulk of the outdoor locations for ''The Fighting Seabees'' was filmed on the

Iverson Movie Ranch Iverson may refer to: Computing * Iverson Award, an ACM honour for APL contributions * Iverson bracket, a mathematical notation * Iverson Notation, the syntactic basis of APL (programming language) Other uses * Iverson Movie Ranch, Chatsworth, Ca ...

in Chatsworth, Calif., widely considered to be the most heavily filmed outdoor filming location in the history of film and television. The production took over virtually the entire 500-acre location ranch for a period of time in 1943, constructing extensive sets on both the Upper Iverson and the Lower Iverson. Palm trees were brought in to transform Iverson's rocky Western landscape into a version of the Pacific islands where the film's action was set. A massive landing strip was constructed on the Upper Iverson to simulate the takeoffs and landings of combat aircraft, as well as enemy bombing raids on the U.S.-built installation. On other parts of the ranch, Quonset huts, observation towers, large fuel tanks and other props were built, with the construction process in many cases filmed and featured as part of the film. Graphic scenes depicting tank battles, sniper attacks and hand-to-hand combat were filmed in the Iverson Gorge, Garden of the Gods and other sections of the movie ranch, in one of the largest productions in the ranch's history. The aircraft in ''The Fighting Seabees'' were: * Brewster F2A-3 Buffalo *

Douglas TBD Devastator The Douglas TBD Devastator was an American torpedo bomber of the United States Navy. Ordered in 1934, it first flew in 1935 and entered service in 1937. At that point, it was the most advanced aircraft flying for the Navy and possibly for any na ...

Douglas SBD Dauntless The Douglas SBD Dauntless is a World War II American naval scout plane and dive bomber that was manufactured by Douglas Aircraft from 1940 through 1944. The SBD ("Scout Bomber Douglas") was the United States Navy's main carrier-based scout/di ...

Mitsubishi Ki-21 The ( Allied reporting name: "Sally" /"Gwen") was a Japanese heavy bomber during World War II. It began operations during the Second Sino-Japanese War participating in the Nomonhan Incident, and in the first stages of the Pacific War, including ...

* Grumman F4F-3 WildcatSantoir, Christian
"Review: 'The Fighting Seabees'."
''Aeromovies'', November 2, 2012. Retrieved: September 3, 2019.

Propaganda

During World War Two, the enemy in Europe was

Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) i ...

, while the enemy in the Pacific was the entire race of Japanese people, according to

Dower Dower is a provision accorded traditionally by a husband or his family, to a wife for her support should she become widowed. It was settled on the bride (being gifted into trust) by agreement at the time of the wedding, or as provided by law. ...

. Japanese atrocities including the

Rape of Nanking The Nanjing Massacre (, ja, 南京大虐殺, Nankin Daigyakusatsu) or the Rape of Nanjing (formerly romanized as ''Nanking'') was the mass murder of Chinese civilians in Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China, immediately after the Ba ...

, the

Bataan Death March The Bataan Death March (Filipino: ''Martsa ng Kamatayan sa Bataan''; Spanish: ''Marcha de la muerte de Bataán'' ; Kapampangan: ''Martsa ning Kematayan quing Bataan''; Japanese: バターン死の行進, Hepburn: ''Batān Shi no Kōshin'') wa ...

, and the

kamikaze , officially , were a part of the Japanese Special Attack Units of military aviators who flew suicide attacks for the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, intending t ...

pilots were partly to blame for these attitudes, but other aspects such as the

Attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii ...

were also at work. As a result of these attitudes, anti-Japanese attitudes were common, including in films of the time. In 'The Fighting Seabees', Dennis O'Keefe informs John Wayne "We're not fighting men anymore, we're fighting animals." The films climactic scene shows Wayne as he punctures and ignites a large fuel tank, flooding the advancing enemy with burning oil. '"That'll scorch those Nips back six generations," he exults.'

Reception

Film historian

Leonard Maltin Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic and film historian, as well as an author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives. He is perhaps best known for his book of fi ...

in ''Leonard Maltin's 2013 Movie Guide'' (2012) considered ''The Fighting Seabees'', "action-packed" and "spirited". Film historian Alun Edwards in ''Brassey's Guide to War Films'' (2000) was more effusive in his evaluation: "With oodles of eulogies and even a Seabees song to sing, you can't fail to leave the Roxy dewey-eyed and with Stars and Stripes fluttering."Edwards 2000, p. 69. A positive review in the '' Rushville Republican'' included as highlights expertly scened battle sequences, tense dramatic interludes, moments of comedy contrasting with moments of suspense; concluding that this film is 'among the most spectacular ever filmed in Hollywood.' This review also drew attention to the fact that the 'Seabees' are less known to the public than most other branches of service, despite providing invaluable service: 'They are, quite literally, the "men in front of the man behind the gun." They land in combat zones ahead of the troops, and prepare docks, landing fields, barracks, everything that the invading troops require.'

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

* Evans, Alun. ''Brassey's Guide to War Films''. Dulles, Virginia: Potomac Books, 2000. . * Halliwell, Leslie. ''Leslie Halliwell's Film Guide''. New York: Harper & Roe, 1989. . * Maltin, Leonard, ed. ''Leonard Maltin's 2013 Movie Guide''. New York: New American Library, 2012 (originally published as ''TV Movies'', then ''Leonard Maltin’s Movie & Video Guide''), First edition 1969, published annually since 1988. .

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fighting Seabees, The Seabees 1944 films 1940s war drama films American aviation films American war drama films American black-and-white films World War II films made in wartime Films directed by Edward Ludwig Films scored by Walter Scharf Republic Pictures films Pacific War films Works about Pacific theatre of World War II 1944 drama films Films scored by Roy Webb