4TH OF JULY MOVIE REVIEW: To The Shores of Tripoli (1942)

Well everyone, first off I would like to wish you and yours a very safe and happy holiday today, with lots of good food, good celebration, and warm summer weather! My family is off to Sonoma today for a picnic, but first I would like to post a short movie review of a film related to the U.S. for the holiday.

You guessed it, this movie is about World War II. Endless wartime propaganda films were made during the war, and To The Shores of Tripoli is no exception. It actually began as simply an examination of war, but as the bombing of Pearl Harbor occurred during filming, they changed the tone of the movie to reflect the growing need for military enlistment in the face of American participation in the war.

The movie concerns itself with a young soldier (John Payne) who falls in love with a Navy nurse (Maureen O’Hara), but under military non-fraternization policy, they are not allowed to….well, fraternize. He keeps on her though, and it gets him in trouble with his girlfriend back home. He eventually leaves the Marines, but back home he learns of Pearl Harbor and re-enlists. The end.

I would say that this is a pretty typical wartime propaganda movie, though probably better than most. I don’t generally like these movies, I find them rather contrived and silly, and I can’t honestly say that I like To the Shores of Tripoli. I enjoy all the actors in it, and it’s fun to see Maureen O’Hara and John Payne acting together a number of years before their famous pairing in Miracle on 34th Street. The plot is hard to follow and not too well-conceived, but the photography is incredible. This was the first movie Maureen O’Hara shot in Technicolor, and she is absolutely stunning.