Citizen Rules...Cinemaesque Chat-n-Review

The only film Frank Sinatra ever directed, and he tried something very different too. The core of this film is ground breaking, it was a joint production between U.S. and Japanese film makers. Both teams contributed to the script and many Japanese actors were used and given equal billing. Even the opening credits bear out that this film is going to be different! as it's told from two view points.

The Japanese soldiers are stranded on a small and unimportant island. So unimportant that the U.S. didn't even bother landing there during WWII. They're starving and out of contact with their homeland, so build a small boat in attempt to rejoin the ongoing war, as it's their duty.


During an air battle a U.S. war plan carrying Marines crash lands on the island. The Marines are also alone, as their radio is destroyed, leaving them to fend for themselves. What makes this film different is, we see the two groups of men going about the same task and from each of their view points. Eventually they talk and decide to work together. So in some ways this is an anti-war film. But don't worry there's still plenty of fightin' and killin' going on.

This was filmed on Kaui, Hawaii and so looks tropical, because it is! The on-location shooting does wonders for the film. So it's too bad Frank Sinatra who plays a drunken military doctor, sleep walks through the movie. It's a movie that has high ideas, but relays on stale one liner wise-cracks....It contains some of the silliest fighting sequences ever put on film. You have a man with a machine gun firing on a group of enemy soldiers and missing most every time. It's hookey when it shouldn't be. One has to see Tommy Sands' over the top Marine Lieutenant to believe it!