The Long Gray Line (1955) on Netflix
Approved19552h 18mBiographyComedyDrama
In 1898 Martin Maher comes from County Tipperary to West Point, where he busses tables before joining the Army. Captain Koehler brings him into athletics, and he meets Mary O'Donnell.
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- Rotten Tomatoes90%
Trailer
Plot summary
Martin Maher arrives at West Point from County Tipperary in 1898 and starts out bussing tables. Two months pass and he has nothing to show for the work, since every dish he breaks comes out of his pay. Learning that enlisted men answer mainly for the guardhouse, he joins the U.S. Army. Captain Herman Koehler, the academy's Master of the Sword, likes what he sees of Marty's fist-fighting and hires him to help with athletics instruction. Marty meets Mary O'Donnell, just over from Ireland to cook for the Koehlers. Since both have fiery Irish tempers, the Koehlers urge Mary to keep her distance until Marty re-enlists and proposes. They marry and move into a house on the post; Marty makes corporal, and Mary puts aside enough to pay the passage of his father and brother from Ireland.
Cast
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Long Gray Line (1955)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The Long Gray Line was the last film of Robert Francis, who played Red Sundstrom: he died at 25 in an air crash, and at his death was billed third behind Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara.
- The real Marty Maher never appealed to President Eisenhower to stay in the Army beyond retirement age: he left the Army in 1928 after 30 years' service and remained at West Point as a civilian employee until 1946.
SPOILER
Cadet Red Sundstrom was invented for the film; the only real West Point graduate awarded the Medal of Honor in World War I was Emory Jenison Pike of the Class of 1901, who also received it posthumously.SPOILER
The film shows Mary Maher dying during the war, but the real Mary Maher, wife of Marty Maher, died in 1948.
