DAMN THE TORPEDOES N' FULL SPEED AHEAD! WE SAY SCREW THE CRITICS AND SALUTE OTTO'S 'IN HARM'S WAY.

                   Some of you might recall what a jolly time we had trashing Otto Preminger's "Hurry Sundown"........

                    We don't take it back......... with "Hurry Sundown" the wheels came off Otto's reliable template of all-star, big budget soap operas with a whiff of controversy around them........

                   But we loved us some "In Harm's Way" way back in 1965 and to hell with what any critic says, we still love it today.......

                  It's grand, ambitious dramatic storytelling on a scale that absolutely nobody in cinema attempts today........it's a five course meal anchored by two  Golden Age movie star icons who made the most unlikely pairing ever........and they were electric together.....

                  Black And White & Widescreen   Preminger may have been the last big budget filmmaker to embrace this odd combination of formats........technicolor would certainly have made the film gloriously ripe and splashy......but the monochrome gave the film a sense gravitas and immediacy..........(and let's be brutal and honest here, the combination of the black & white photography along with Jerry Goldsmith's muscular score,  made Preminger's use of miniature models in the naval battles a little less glaring and obvious....)

                   John Wayne and Kirk Douglas  What a duo for the ages.......the hard-charging, hard right Wayne and the intense, liberal Douglas...(who, along with Preminger, broke the Hollywood blacklist by hiring Dalton Trumbo to write their films "Exodus" and "Spartacus")   Supposedly avoiding politics, they played off beautifully against each other, even teaming again for "The War Wagon"......

                     Jerry Goldsmith   The MVP here, delivering a towering score that hits every note the film needs.......patriotic glory, poignant love, the churn of battle......and establishes the hallmark of every great score by becoming part of the film's DNA...........compare this music to the random noise that's being applied to films today and we almost want to weep for the lost art of composers like Goldsmith.

                      and one last salute to....

                     Saul Bass  Preminger leaves all the title credits to the end......and in the hands of the master of Main Titles guru and visualist Bass.  Bass, with the accompaniment of Goldsmith's score, creates a 2 & 1/2 minute crescendo of boiling ocean and cataclysmic fire.......a stunning visual representation of the entire World War 2 Pacific conflict, from beginning to end.   No war film could have had a better sendoff than this one......

                    We realize we should have posted on this film yesterday, for Memorial Day.......especially since the country was once again debased and disgraced by a Baby Orange tweet, in which he used the sacrifice of people who died in military service  to bleat about himself.

                   .......which made a return to a stirring old-fashioned exercise in honor and heroism like "In Harm's Way" so welcome and comforting. 4 stars (****)