1943 - GUADALCANAL DIARY, fairly good World War II film

For one of those rah rah World War II fighting films Guadalcanal Diary is a pretty good war film.  It doesn't hit the viewer over the head with the usual amount of government propaganda that the American public was saturated with during World War II.

The film is based on the United States invasion of Guadalcanal in 1942. The mission was to shut down a Japanese airfield that could have threatened Australia and New Zealand.  This film is a little unusual in that it keeps it's focus on a platoon of soldiers instead of the usual military officers barking out orders.  The soldiers are mostly character actors with not a major star in the group.  No Tyrone Power, John Wayne or Clark Gable which does add a little more realism to the story.  Power and Gable were actually serving in the armed forces during the war anyway.

 

Guadalcanal Diary has an interesting cast of actors some who could probably pass for real marines.   William Bendix, Lloyd Nolan, Richard Conte, Anthony Quinn, Preston Foster and Lionel Standler show up playing grunts.  Most of these guys were usually supporting players in "A" pictures or leads in cheapo B movies.  The film is also the debut of Richard Jaeckel a character actor who appeared in around 70 films until 1994 when he retired.

 

Guadalcanal Diary was mostly filmed on location and not on a studio sound stage if you can call filming at Oceanside, California on location I guess.  The film was written by Lamar Trotti and Jerome Cady.  The running time is 93 minutes.