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Sands of Iwo Jima
Original movie poster
Directed by	Allan Dwan
Produced by	Edmund Grainger
Written by	Harry Brown, James Edward Grant
Starring	John Wayne, John Agar, Forrest Tucker
Music by	Victor Young
Running time	100 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

Sands of Iwo Jima is a 1949 war film which follows a group of Marines from training to the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II. It stars John Wayne, John Agar, Adele Mara and Forrest Tucker. The movie was written by Harry Brown and James Edward Grant and directed by Allan Dwan. It was produced by Republic Pictures.

It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (John Wayne), Best Film Editing, Best Sound, Recording and Best Writing, Motion Picture Story.

Tough-as-nails career Marine Sergeant John Stryker (John Wayne) is greatly disliked by the men of his squad, particularly the combat replacements, for the rigorous training he puts them through. He is especially despised by Private Peter Conway (John Agar), the arrogant, college-educated son of an officer Stryker served under and admired, and Private Al Thomas (Forrest Tucker), who blames him for his demotion. During a training exercise, a recruit drops a live hand grenade. Everybody drops to the ground except Conway, who is distracted reading a letter from his wife. Stryker knocks him down, saving his life, and then proceeds to bawl him out.

When he leads his squad in the invasion of Tarawa, the men begin to appreciate his methods, except Conway, who considers him brutal and unfeeling when he apparently abandons a wounded comrade to the enemy. During the battle, Thomas goofs off when he goes to get ammunition for two comrades, stopping to savor a cup of coffee. As a result, he returns too late - the two Marines, now out of ammunition, are overrun; one is killed, the other badly wounded, by bayonets. When Stryker discovers the truth, he forces Thomas into a fistfight. Stryker is accused by an officer of striking a subordinate but Thomas unexpectedly gets him out of the jam. His conscience ravaging him, Thomas breaks down and abjectly apologizes for his dereliction.

Stryker shows his soft side while on leave in Honolulu. He picks up a bargirl and goes to her apartment. He becomes suspicious when he hears somebody in the next room, but when he investigates, all he finds is a hungry baby boy she is supporting the best way she can. He gives the girl (a Marine's widow) all his money and leaves.

In the next invasion, Stryker's squad is involved in the battle for Iwo Jima, in particular the iconic flag raising on Mount Suribachi. Afterwards, while the men are resting during a lull in the fighting, a sniper pops up out of a hole and kills him. His men find a letter on him, addressed to his ex-wife and son, saying all the things he wanted to say, but never got around to.

• Rene Gagnon, Ira Hayes, and John Bradley, the three survivors of the five Marines and one Navy corpsman who raised the flag on Suribachi, appear briefly in the film just prior to the re-enactment. Hayes was also the subject of a film biography, The Outsider, and Bradley the subject of a book by his son, Flags of Our Fathers.

• Also appearing as themselves are 1st Lt. Harold Schrier, who led the flag-raising patrol on Iwo Jima, Col. David M. Shoup, later Commandant of the Marine Corps and recipient of the Medal of Honor at Tarawa, and Lt. Col. Henry P. "Jim" Crowe, commander of the 2nd Battalion 8th Marines at Tarawa, where he earned the Navy Cross.

• A scene from this movie can be seen in the 2006 film Thank You For Smoking.

• Southern rock band Drive-By Truckers has a song entitled "The Sands of Iwo Jima" on its album The Dirty South. It is sung from the perspective of a young boy who loves John Wayne movies. He asked his great-uncle, a World War II veteran, if "The Sands of Iwo Jima" represented the war properly; the old man smiled, shook his head and responded "I never saw John Wayne on the sands of Iwo Jima".

• In the television show King of the Hill it is mentioned that this is the favorite film of Cotton Hill, father of main character Hank Hill. Hank recalls that in his childhood his father would travel around Texas searching for showings of this film.

• The film has the first recorded use of the phrase lock and load two times, once as a metaphor for "get ready to fight" and the second time as a call to drink alcohol.

• Sands of Iwo Jima at the Internet Movie Database