"Guadalcanal Diary" is a good film, probably the best war film that has appeared. That statement needs, no qualification. Twentieth Century Fox's picture is really almost a document of the forceful realities involved in taking the Solomon Islands. The heat, the sweat, the tenseness before the landing, the mud and rain, the enemy, and the death are all in it.
Preston Foster, Lloyd Nolan, William Bondix; Richard Conte, and Anthony Quinn are starred, but none of them stands out from the rest of the Marines. We just get the impression of a lot of men doing what they're told, and going through hell to do it--no heroics, no triumphing over insuperable odds.
"Guadalcanal Diary" is not patriotically stirring; in some places, rather, it is as disillusioning as the old Romarque novels, "All Quiet on the Western Front" and "The Road Back." There is a narrator, who apparently reads from Harvard grad Richard Tregaskis' book, and the whole scene is similar to the radio program "The Man Behind the Gun." It is very exciting, yet the over-all effect is moving and sobering.
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