It's time for another Mark VII Ltd. production.
Jack Webb stars as staff sergeant Moore. The best drill instructor in the whole Parris Island, He's job is simple in design and complicated in execution. He must take a ragtag group of wannabe soldiers and turn them into the most elite fighting force the entire US military as ever know and create the ultimate in the Marine Corps.
But he has one thorn in his side. Private Owens, a man who consistently screws up every order that he's given and tries with all his might to get out of the Marine Corps. He constantly uses medical excuses and does everything in his power to make the sergeant think that he's weak and unwieldy for military service. Problem is Pvt Owens is actually fairly intelligent ans can follow instructions fairly well wean he wishes to. Sergeant Moore's boss wants to get rid of him, signing him as a possible problem for the Marines. But Moore's knows that he has to potential and does everything in his power to improve em.
And that really is most of the plot, there's a slight Love Story between Jack Webb's character and some random girl but it only lasts for about 15 minutes for the whole movie and doesn't have that much bearing on anything. Every thing's done in that no-nonsense Jack Webb Style. All the dialogue of solid and poignant it doesn't really waste any time and the camera works surprisingly sophisticated for a Mark VII production.
The big draw is watching Jack Webb scream at everybody. He plays a surprisingly good drill sergeant.
The film has a surprisingly large amount of camera tricks. Lots of Dolly shots and spinning images . mostly I wouldn't bother bringing that up as they're fairly common in most movies but a Mark 7 film, it usually not known for its pizzazz.
One of the things I particularly liked about this film was getting to see the human side to a drill sergeant. They might be in control their Squadron but that doesn't necessarily mean that they have control the rest of their life. We also get to hear a lot of military terminology. It's loud, repetitive and daunting . If that doesn't some up the US military than I don't know what does.
This film came out one year after the ''ribbon Creek incident''.Where a Sergeant let he's Squadron of trainees into a swamp killing six of them. It's a bit of a black guy on the Marines. It's most likely the reason the real Marine Corps put so much investment and time into this film. It has to rebuild its image after all, doing it under somebody like Jack Webb as a relatively safe bet. The man's never been known for his vulgarity.
It's a fairly decent film. If you're a fan of Dragnet or the first half of ''Full Metal Jacket'' then there's definitely something to be seen here.
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