Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) on Netflix
Approved19491h 40mActionDramaWar
New Marines join Sergeant John Stryker's squad in 1943, and he drills them hard. Peter Conway, whose father was the colonel Stryker served under at Guadalcanal, resents him most of all.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb7.0/1012,534 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes100%
Trailer
Plot summary
Sergeant John Stryker, a career Marine, takes over a rifle squad of replacements in 1943, three veterans and an old enemy among them. He trains the men without sympathy and they resent him, above all Peter Conway, the college-educated son of the colonel Stryker served under at Guadalcanal, who thought his son too soft for the Marines. Al Thomas blames Stryker for his demotion. Conway marries Allison Bromley while the unit is in New Zealand, before it moves on toward Tarawa, and Stryker, whose wife left him years earlier and took their son, drinks himself into trouble until his men pull him away from a naval shore patrol.
Cast
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Sands of Iwo Jima (1949)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The screenplay by Harry Brown and James Edward Grant is the earliest known use of the phrase "lock and load", the order to get ready to fight, which described locking back the bolt of an M1 Garand and loading its eight-round clip.
- The film brought John Wayne his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, one of four nominations it collected at the 22nd Academy Awards, though it won nothing. A follow-up with Wayne called Devil Birds was planned and never made.
