It's never a promising sign when you find yourself checking the time to see how much of the film is left to go. I did that with this one, only 32 minutes in....which means I still had 90 minutes more of this train wreck. And believe me, at times it is a train wreck. Those reviewers on here giving this 8, 9 or 10 stars could use some introspection.What am I talking about? Well let's see...in the first 30 minutes, we watch the "hero," Al Schmid, kiss a preteen girl on the lips (his best-friend's daughter), then tell her that in 5-6 years he will marry her. If I did that to my best friend's daughter he would punch my lights out (and rightly so) before calling the police and reporting me for being a child predator. Then, Al is set up on a blind date with a woman named Ruth, apparently against his will, so his way of dealing with the situation is to attempt to loudly belittle and disparage his date in a bowling alley for all to hear. Quite mature for our hero, wouldn't you say? The next day he realizes the error of his ways....so he decides to make it up to her. How? By confronting her at a public bus stop and telling everyone present that she has abandoned their boy and is seemingly guilty of child negligence. Never mind the fact that they are not a couple and there is no child, he is making the whole thing up to shame her in front of a group of strangers. What an honorable guy, this Al. But she inexplicably gets in his car, anyway, instead of telling him to get lost, and he proceeds to drive her home. When he learns there is another man waiting at home to take her out on a date, he purposely crashes his car into the other man's in a fit of rage, anger and/or jealousy. And quite laughably, shortly after this incident Ruth decides "wow this is the guy for me!" It was at this point I looked at the time because I was saying to myself "how much more of this nonsense can I take?" Keep in mind you as the viewer are supposed to look upon the actions of Al as commendable - he is the subject of the film - the "Pride of the Marines." So the protagonist - our hero - is an ill-tempered, pompous, creepy, impulsive liar. And you are supposed to be sympathetic towards him...it is that bad.Not helping matters is the misleading title. Of the two-hour running time, only about 20 minutes concerns Al's active duty in the Marines. The rest is spent either establishing his "courtship" of Ruth (cough cough) or the bitterness he feels after suffering injuries in battle (about an hour and the bulk of the film). In between there is one action sequence set in Guadalcanal from which the film gets its title (I suppose). So dispel the notion that this is a war film or an action film, it is largely neither. It's a rather shoddy attempt to engender pride and rouse patriotic fervor, as this was produced in the latter stages of World War II. However, the callous and indifferent way Al treats other people, especially those close to him, both before and after that battle sequence is actually quite despicable and not worthy of anyone's pride. This film is based on a real person named Al Schmid. I can only hope the real Al wasn't as much of a cad as the one portrayed here. Ouch.

***SPOILERS*** On of the first WWII movies coming out of Hollywood that shows how the war effected those GI's, or in this case US Marines, who fought in it.21 year old Al Schmid, John Garfield, was just starting to live with a well paying job-earning some $40.00 a week-at the local steel mill and girl Ruth Hartley, Elenore Parker, whom he was about to marry when the Japs spoiled everything for him, and millions of likewise young Americans, by attacking the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. Doing his duty as an American citizen Al immediately joined the US Marine Corps hoping to get back at the Japs knowing, correctly as it was to turn out, that the Marines would be the first American combat units to get a crack at them.Al finally got his chance when his unit, the 1st Marine Division, landed on August 7, 1942 at Guadalcanal in the far flung Solomon Islands to engage the Japanese who were were in control of it. It was during the battle of the Ilu River that Al almost single handed stopped a massive Japanese Banzai attack holding off, with his machine gun, wave after wave of suicide attacks by the determined Japs until help, or reinforcements, finally arrived. It was during the bloody fighting Al was hit in the face by a Jap grenade that ended up blinding him.Now back in the states convalescing at a naval hospital Al is faced with something far more harder to overcome then battling a battalion size attack of Japanese or German soldiers. He's faced with a future where he'll never see again and having to depend on others to look after, or for, him!We get to see in the film "Pride of the Marines" Al battle himself far harder then he did the Japanese troops on Guadalcanal in just coming to terms with his disability. Not wanting anyone, especially his girlfriend Ruth, to feel sorry for him Al in fact is the one who feels sorry for himself more then anyone else in the movie. It's with the help of Navy Nurse Virginia Pfeiffer, Rosemary DeCamp, and Ruth together with his US Marine buddy Lee Diamond, Dane Clark, that in the end gives Al the courage to face his blindness with the same strength that he faced wave after wave of Japanese troops on Gudalcanal. A courage Al thought he lost back in that God-forsaken island hell in the South Pacific.Based on the true story of US Marine Sergeant Albert Schmid "Pride of the Marines" showed what we were to expect from the tens of thousands of wounded US Servicemen coming back from the war. We get to see how it in many ways was far more difficult for those fighting the war to adjust to a peacetime America when they left something, like in the case of Al Schmid, behind on the battlefield. Al's battle with his personal demons was a lot harder then the Japanese that he fought in that they were part of him and thus had to fight himself in order to overcome and eventually defeat them. Despite the help that he got from both Nurse Virginia and his girlfriend Ruth as well as his Navy doctor-who has a striking resemblance to actor Gregory Peck-it still was up to Al to overcome the fears that he faced. Fears which he and only he had to both battle and overcome, like he was told by everyone in the movie, all by himself.

A very good wartime movie showing the effects of war on a hometown boy who looses his eyesight on Guadalcanal and must come home and re-adjust himself with the help of family and friends. An excellent cast of actor's helps make this movie very entertaining. Eleanor Parker's role as the girlfriend was worthy of an Oscar nomination. She has such an innocence to her in this movie. Ann Doran role was equally satisfying as was all of her small supporting roles. I especially like the hometown aura of pre-war Phildelphia. The hunting scene is very good. Of course the war scene on Guadalcanal truly showed the horror faced by our soldiers during this epic battle. A well deserving film and one that should not be forgotten

In the immediate aftermath following World War II, sound minds in Hollywood tried to distance themselves from the mindless flag-waving that is a natural ingredient in a war effort. "Best Years of Our Lives' and even 'Gentleman's Agreement' investigated the way Americans looked at themselves in the wake of the war, but Delmer Daves' "Pride of the Marines" beat them to it.The film is about Philadelphia smart alec John Garfield who goes to war as a marine and after a nightmarish evening in a foxhole, with Japanese soldiers eerily crying out at him and his buddies "Mariiines, tonight you die!", he is blinded by a hand-grenade, and dumps his girlfriend back home rather than have to depend on her after coming home.Delmer Daves is uncompromising in his depiction on these men who are brave, as it were, almost by coincidence. They are there, in the foxhole, and when shot at, they react. So much for heroism, but they get the job done. And then comes the self-pity, the dark, gloomy sense of humor. Garfield is in angry denial of his blindness and the film makes no excuses, "There's no free candy for anyone in this world", as his buddy tells him. The same guy, a Jew, played by Dane Clark, reminds him, "In a war somebody gets it, and you're it. Everybody's got problems! When I get back, some guys won't hire me, because my name is Diamond".Great movies are made with guts like these, and if the first half hour of 'Pride of the Marines' fails to rise to the occasion completely, from then on it evolves into a true work of art. You weep, and you ponder, you ache and you hope against hope. Well, simply: art.