Movieland. (1945)

(Warner Bros.) ( Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) (Universal) SOME day, after the war is won, the Navy Department may let us know the name of the real-life sub¬ marine captain whom Cary Grant enacts in “Destination Tokyo.” His identity and that of the courageous crew have remained a military se¬ cret, even though it officially became known last May that an American submarine ran interference in Tokyo Harbor for the smashing aerial raid on Japan staged by Doolittle and his boys. Such an amazing cruise into enemy waters as the one depicted in this immensely exciting picture ac¬ tually took place. It was brought off by men of intestinal fortitude spelled with a capital “G.” Holly¬ wood has filmed no finer war adven¬ ture than “Destination Tokyo.” You can’t afford to miss its tense excite¬ ment. Cary is every inch the distin¬ guished naval captain he portrays. John Garfield does a grand job of the torpedoman who enjoys brag¬ ging of conquests ashore; Alan Hale, the richly amusing cookie; and John Ridgely, the Japanese-speaking of¬ ficer in command of the landing party. Newcomers Robert Hutton, as the kid, and William Prince, as Pills the pharmacist mate, are note¬ worthy. The episode of the emer¬ gency operation is borrowed from a true occurrence. Fictionally, the submarine is called the U.S.S. Copperfin. It puts to sea under sealed orders, stops at the Aleutians to pick up the Japa¬ nese-speaking officer, repulses an attack by Zeros, and dodges through the mine fields in Tokyo Harbor by tagging a Jap transport. Weather observations are radioed to the Hor¬ net for the benefit of Doolittle, then begins the fight to get away again. It’s a thriller of war thrillers, but grippingly real and really dramatic. ACCORDING to the creed of flyers, “pilots never die.” At the elbow of every veteran or tyro in the air is the spirit of “A Guy Named Joe” to help when the going gets tough. What else can account for all the unexplainable happenings which make up the stories in the airman’s lore? Amazing, unbelievable stories, but told as being true. Call this a whimsey of the super¬ stitious-minded, if you will. Yet somehow it is an enormously heart¬ ening notion which is widely be¬ lieved by men whose bravery we celebrate on every front of this global war. There are gremlins, aren’t there — imps of evil who make things go wrong? Well, why can’t there be guys named Joe, too? If in your enjoyment of this pic¬ ture you are reminded of “Here Comes Mr. Jordan” by the cloudcovered flying field upon which Spencer Tracy lands, it may be well for you to recall that both fantasies were produced by the same man, Everett Riskin. From Lionel Barry¬ more, who enacts the “general,” Tracy gets his first orders after the crash. He is assigned to be a Joe for a fresh kid just out of Boston Tech. It looks like a snap job, until the kid starts to fall in love with the charming ferry transport pilot whom Tracy loved on earth. There begins a strange and fascinating ro¬ mance which has angles of the eter¬ nal triangle in the real and the supernatural. But we’re not going to reveal who wins the lady’s hand. Irene Dunne is the lovely one in the Ferry Trans • port Service, and Van Johnson the kid from Boston Tech. Van had an accident on a motorcycle that hos¬ pitalized him while the picture was in production. -It could be that Joes don’t ride on handlebars. THE story of Carlson’s Marine Raid¬ ers and of their stunning hit-andrun raid on the Japanese stronghold on Makin Island. Their thrilling feat in August of 1942 made world head¬ lines, not only because of the bril¬ liant military strategy of the sur¬ prise attack, but because it marked America’s first offensive in the war with Japan. The picture that Walter Wanger has based upon this achievement by Carlson’s hand-picked Marines is a first-class thriller that will hold you spellbound by the intensity of the battle sequences, certainly as stir¬ ring and exciting as any ever filmed. Real Marines worked before the cameras in these fights as part of their Raider training at Camp Pen¬ dleton. No tougher, rougher band of fighting men has ever been as¬ sembled than these fellows who wear the uniform of Uncle Sam. The title, “Gung Ho,” is the slogan under which they are trained. Trans¬ lated from the Chinese, it means “work in harmony,” which is what they must learn to do to survive. Represented by that slogan is a Whole new code of officer-men rela¬ tionships. Fighting men are given democracy in the service equal to the free rights institutions they’re offering their lives to help preserve. Randolph Scott plays the char¬ acter who is the counterpart of Colonel Carlson. Surrounding him are such stalwarts in the ranks as Alan Curtis, J. Carrol Naish, Sam Levene and Rod Cameron. But there is small chance for individual per¬ formance honors in a cast that works in harmony like the men they impersonate. The story falters only when it tries to arouse interest in a pallid love thread which involves a couple of glimpses of Grace McDonald.