Frank Sinatra stars & directs (?) this 1965 WWII drama of American & Japanese troops stranded on an island who have to make a shaky peace w/each before the inevitable happens. A small contingent of Japanese have been on the island for a while (due to a mishap) & they've managed to make the best of things, even constructing a pier as they put the finishing touches on a boat to escape but then an American plane carrying troops crashes on the island precipitously hitting the deserted part of the isle but when each side journey out, hostilities take over until cooler heads prevail as the Japanese commander proposes a truce but the ingrained sentiments the enemy has for each other leads to predictable results. Sinatra, who plays the team's doctor, stays in the background wisecracking his performance away letting the dramatic lifting to Clint Walker (from the Dirty Dozen) who butts heads w/the intractably racist commander. Pretty much on autopilot as to where the narrative is going so it's only a question of when those fatal shots will be fired. It's funny to note, three years later, a more economical take on the material named Hell in the Pacific, which starred Lee Marvin & Toshiro Mifune & directed by John Boorman, got the point of across w/less actors on screen. Also starring Brad Dexter, Tony Bill & Richard Bakalyan as soldiers.
Review of None But the Brave
