Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I was a big fan of Chandler as a boy in the 1950's. My personal favorites of his from then and as an adult are Pillars of the Sky and Yankee Pasha. As always with older films, you have to put them in the context of the time in which they were made as far as style, realism, etc. Believe me, this guy was handsome to the ladies and a man's man to the guys....tons of on screen magnetism.
The main thing I want to add about both Chandler and this movie is my experience watching this film as a Navy officer aboard a ship of the very same type during the Viet Nam era. The title of the film refers to the fact that the ship (the Belinda, as I recall) was an amphibious cargo ship, one which carries marine vehicles, anchors off the coast, lowers boats ("away all boats") into the water and drops the vehicles into the boats for the trip to the beach with U.S Marines who drive them ashore and onward. In the officers' wardroom aboard the USS El Paso in the early '70's, we watched this movie multiple times and loved it as well done and realistic.
We did get some big chuckles out of the casting comparing actors like Richard Boone ("Have Gun Will Travel") playing, I think, the First Lieutenant, and Lex Barker (Tarzan) as the Executive Officer and comparing these guys to our own counterparts. We all thought the film was "Navy" all the way, however. I'm not sure if these amphibious cargo ships are still in operation, but they were used through the first Gulf War.
This movie is realistic and an accurate depiction of a U.S.Navy amphibious ship during wartime. Chandler is certainly the main man in the story but does not dominate to quite the same extent as in some of his other films. He is good in the role, however, and this is an authentic depiction of Navy life and a good story.
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