Marines, Let's Go!

Saddling Up For The War

Basically a training camp comedy/romance that suddenly got serious when a real-life war happened, To the Shores of Tripoli caught luck of timing to become a major hit for 20th in 1942. We barely know it today for dated content, but this was one for flags flown and goosing patronage to rout of the enemy. Tripoli became, thanks to Pearl Harbor, something more than time passed in seats. The Chicago Theatre first-run illustrates: "Precision drills" on stage, with "actual tank miniatures in operation," this daily from 10:00 AM, then for capper at 10:30 PM, the U.S. Marines "Crack Drill Detachment" and 30-Voice Glee Club. We might assume customers headed straight from the auditorium to enlistment stations, provided latter kept late hours (so query --- was recruitment and sign-up a 24-7 operation through WWII?). Why would boys duck service when training looked to be a lark like shown in To the Shores of Tripoli? Sunny clime of San Diego for boot camping, weekend dance with pretty nurses, Hershey Bars from the canteen --- who knew this was prelude to island-hopping hell and loss after loss the USMC would suffer in grim opener months of the war?

We can observe from seventy-five year distance and imagine WWII to be more fun than not, based on Technicolor pour over reality. Easy to smite To the Shores of Tripoli for misleading its public, but this was war. All had to be aboard for the struggle to stay free and continue to enjoy silly movies loose with the truth, but reassuring all the same and at a time where no questions need be asked re harsher truths of the conflict. Leave that to newsreels, which, sanitized as most were, at least showed men in actual field of combat instead of soundstage repose and being kissed by Maureen O'Hara. We'll never know how seductive To the Shores of Tripoli was to youth already with an itch to join. Pic was premiered March 1942, appropriately in San Diego, Marine camp location for cast/crew. Just picture high school graduates a couple months later crowding into boot camps eager to receive them, To the Shores of Tripoli and ones like it greasing the way.

1952 Cleveland Reissue with, Ouch!, B/W Prints

At least Zanuck realized what flight of fancy this was. "Nobody can accuse us of any great originality as far as plot or characters are concerned," said he in a 4/42 memo, which also pointed out rightly that "if the background and atmosphere are interesting, if the theme is patriotic, if the action is exciting, and if you have good comedy values, the fact that the plot is A-B-C doesn't make the slightest difference." Director H. Bruce Humberstone wanted to do To the Shores of Tripoli because he knew we'd be in a war by the time shooting was finished, or so he said to interviewing Jon Tuska decades later (Humberstone claimed that the last day of production was 12/7/41 --- did they work on Sunday?). There was last minute reshuffle when Pearl attack made changes urgent. An ending was scrapped (graduation from basic training), with a new one showing troops shipping out in wake of Dec. 7 attack. This would bring narrative even with headlines, and put To the Shores of Tripoli among first of service films recognizing recent events. Even with Technicolor, the show had been completed for an economical one million. It would more than triple that in worldwide rentals. Spring of 1942 saw To the Shores of Tripoli "continuing to make a bum out of every picture we have made in the last three years, including How Green Was My Valley" (Zanuck).

Here's suggestion for a double-bill: To the Shores of Tripoli with Laurel and Hardy in Great Guns, both begun as peacetime service shows, accent on lighter aspect of training programs, each benefiting from actual war that made them popular beyond merit of either. What we overlook now is how timely the two were, and basis this was for pleasing reviewers and the audience. To praise especially Great Guns seems irrational to us, but we weren't there in 1941 when it raised roofs of theatres nationwide. Laurel and Hardy were far more relevant here than they had been for years ... at least to 1941's reckoning. As for To the Shores of Tripoli, what more joy than spending ninety minutes inside a very camp to which loved ones might be dispatched. Such glimpse of their training to come had close-to-home significance for almost everyone in seats. What seems silly to us was like documentary for them. And to put Laurel-Hardy in uniform, on eve of a brand new war, seemed only natural (even though both were plenty old enough to have fought in the last war).

It mattered less that the team lost creative input. Just showing up was plenty enough. Frightful as their Fox films now seem (to some, but not all), going there could be argued as a right move, at least in context of the times. Options for L&H otherwise? More for Roach, likely streamliners, w/ distribution through United Artists no match for 20th Fox finesse in that area, or continued tours through presentation houses, a viable notion, but essentially vaudeville and constant on-the-road. To stay truly visible, Laurel and Hardy had to be on screens, and in new product. At least Fox got them out there and in front of large audiences. Plus the films were well-attended and presumably enjoyed. Fact they'd date, and be less appealing today, was fate Great Guns and rest of 40's L&H would share with To the Shores of Tripoli and so much of what came out in wartime, but viewed with WWII urgencies in mind, they can all still be appreciated and enjoyed. To the Shores of Tripoli streams in HD on I-Tunes, and looks fine.