It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Good movie but grossly overrated

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

John Wayne and Dennis O'Keefe butt heads in The Fighting Seabees, and not just over military strategy. This WW2 war movie is also a love triangle, as both men fight over the beautiful and smart Susan Hayward. I thought the romance was the most interesting part of the movie, but unfortunately for me, the war scenes were more frequent. However, if you're looking for a straight war movie, you'll probably think the romantic scenes are the unnecessary ones!The film was made during WW2, and it was mostly a pro-American propaganda film to boost morale and ensure the folks at home, "Have no fear, we'll lick this thing!" The Duke is the head of a construction company building in the South Pacific. When the Japanese invade, the "fighting" Seabees must come together and protect the island. If you're a John Wayne fan, which I am not, you probably won't find any problem with this one. If you're looking for a young Susan Hayward flick, rent Adam Had Four Sons instead.

To me, this wartime morale booster succeeds admirably in its main goals, emphasizing the importance of specialized construction crews in war efforts, and their need to be able to defend themselves against enemy fire. I can't think of another film that acknowledges the importance of specialized military construction and repair crews. Without them, in modern warfare, it would be like having singers with no song writers. The name Seabees was created by one Frank Iafrate, who was asked to draw a cartoon-like insignia for the newly anointed construction battalions. He decided to characterize them as busy bees, which don't bother others unless they are bothered themselves, in which case they retaliate with a painful sting. Serendipitously, Seabees can also be thought of as standing for CBs: Construction Battalions. One reviewer commented that the typical age of Seabees was 40s and 50s, not the 20s and 30s of most members shown. According to Wikipedia, initially, when recruits were volunteers, the mean age was 37. Later, when new recruits were all drafted, the mean age dropped considerably. Reviewers often lament the characterization of Japanese soldiers and airmen as 'bug-eyed monkeys' with fiendish grins, implying they were racially inferior to Caucasians. Remember that Americans were still hopping mad about Pearl Harbor and the Philippines, and that anti- Japanese and anti-Chinese sentiments of most Caucasian Americans was a long established tradition. If I remember, Japanese combatants weren't much better portrayed in other war films of this era.. Twice, John Wayne, as commander of the Seabees on this island, disobeys orders not to allow his men to defend themselves against snipers and Japanese mass attacks. This emphasizes the greater danger that Seabees often suffered than regular combatants in war zones, and thus their need to be trained to use firearms and to have firearms available when deemed necessary. Thus, in a pinch, Seabees might function as sort of a ground force for the Navy. In the first instance of disobedience, Wayne should have contacted Commander Yarrow(Dennis O'Keefe) before he armed his men and sent them looking for Japanese. He would have found out that the naval forces under Yarrow had set up a cross-fire ambush. But Wayne's men were moving right into the line of fire, and too many were killed by Japs.Probably, the 2 most important structures the Seabees built on this island were a pair of petrol tanks and the air strip. The workers were shown laying down sections of Marston Mats, made of perforated steel sheets, often used to make short term airfields quickly. Susan Hayward's character, serving as the love interest for both Wayne and Yarrow, was essentially decorative, she being quite a cutie. Perhaps she should have been cast as a Navy nurse rather than a war correspondent. Then, perhaps she wouldn't have largely disappeared in the second half of the film, until the ending."The Song of the Seabees",quite memorable, was sung during the opening and closing credits, and I believe once during the film. "Where Do You Work a, John" was also a pleasant ditty for a group sing. The construction sets, such as housing, the oil tanks and airfield, were often filmed and used in the finished film. It was filmed at the Iverson Movie Ranch, where many a movie was largely filmed. It is said to have had the biggest budget in the history of Republic Films.You can see it at YouTube

Like all these ww2 propaganda films it was rubbish. Full of overblown heroics and racist name calling. I see lots of reviews saying movies like this were a product of their time. Well so were the propaganda movies the Nazis and the Japanese were putting out but I don't see anyone say what good films they were. Propaganda isn't just to bolster moral it's also supposed to engender hatred and demonize the enemy. It's OK to kill them because they are hateful and inhuman. Their soldiers don't have loved ones like ours they're just meat bags who deserve to die. We have wars today but nobody in their right mind would try to portray them as movies like this one and others of it's ilk does. People are far too sophisticated to buy this "war is glorious" rubbish. If it proves anything it's that people back then must have been pretty gullible to buy such nonsense as the true face of war.

This movie is one of my favorite John Wayne movies for all the wrong reasons. The Duke here is portrayed as a dull witted hothead until he bends to the will of the Navy, which, of course, in 1944, could do no wrong on the silver screen. The caricatures of the Japanese soldiers as grinning psychopaths who lived to take American lives seems ridiculous even when compared to other period movies. The film shows a medium close up of each Japanese sniper and tanker who then proceeds to grin for a full second before taking aim to kill yet another American, often unarmed civilian Americans at that! (Spoiler Warning!) The climactic scene has the Great American Hero so hacked off at the Japanese Army that he hops into a bulldozer and destroys an entire Japanese assault column and it's tanks as if pushing so much rubbish off the road! This one will never go into archives as the greatest war film of all time, but, is amusing in it's way as propaganda that approaches ridiculous in its depictions.