The Marines Fly High (1940)
Marine lieutenants Dan and Jim fight bandits in the South American jungle, while competing for the attention of beautiful Joan Grant.
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The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.
Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
The warning at the beginning may seem ludicrous for today's,audience:America is always here in the world when countries are "badly " ruled" or threatened by revolutionaries (called "bandits"!!).fortunately the marines fly high and are here to support the "good " natives and save the damsel in distress (here,Lucille Ball,owner of a cacao plantation,coveted (the lady) by the two brave soldiers .There's two good things: -the identity of El Vengador "( who claims his salary !) -the astute way of getting a wrench (with a message ) closer to the soldiers .If you like Dix,do choose "ghost ship"(Mark Robson,1943) instead.
With WWII already engulfing Europe, you would think the Marine Corps could help devise a much better film to aid enlistments than this low-budget sparsely equipped film. All you get is a handful of airplanes and a very few marines helping to quash rebellion and banditry in an unnamed Central American country. The equipment in this film pales by comparison with those in films like "Here Comes The Navy (1934)," "Submarine D-1 (1937)" and "Wings of the Navy (1939)." I would think it would have the effect of driving people away from joining the marines. Lovely Lucille Ball is a plus, but once again there is a tedious love triangle involving her, Richard Dix and Chester Morris that detracts from the action that comes later in the film. That action was somewhat exciting, but the film was disappointing in the main.