They Were Expendable

They Were Expendable is a 1945 American black-and-white war film directed by John Ford for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, dramatizing the exploits of a U.S. Navy Motor Torpedo Boat squadron during the losing defense of the Philippines in 1941 and 1942. It stars Robert Montgomery as Lt. John Brickley, John Wayne as Lt. (j.g.) "Rusty" Ryan, and Donna Reed as Navy nurse Sandy Davyss, with a screenplay by Frank Wead adapted from William L. White's 1942 book of the same name.^{1 • 2}

The book and the real squadron

After the fall of the Philippines, W. L. White published They Were Expendable (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1942), a rousing though, by one film-history account, not entirely factual account of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron 3, based primarily on interviews with its commanding officer, Lt. John D. Bulkeley (later Vice Admiral), and his second officer, Lt. Robert B. Kelly. The book was the first ever to receive an "I" (for "imperative") award from the Publishers' Committee of War Books, a body of publishers and government representatives that identified books contributing to the war effort.^{2 • 1}

M-G-M bought the film rights in August 1942 for $30,000 plus royalties up to $20,000, with one third of the purchase price donated to the Navy Relief Fund. The project was initially a starring vehicle for Spencer Tracy, and was to be filmed in Technicolor.¹

Production

Development was slow. Sidney Franklin was hired to produce in late 1942, with Sam Zimbalist and Mervyn LeRoy also assigned, but in September 1943 the picture was placed on M-G-M's "inactive" list because the popularity of war films seemed to be declining and the story was thought too similar to the studio's Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. Work resumed in mid-1944, when screenwriter Frank Wead, a former U.S. Navy aviator, was completing the script, and the film was taken off the inactive list in October 1944 after military action in the Philippines revived.⁸

Ford in uniform. Ford went on detached duty from the Naval Reserve in October 1944 and, as a Navy captain placed on inactive status, directed the film, though he insisted he was under orders rather than eager. Shooting began around Key Biscayne, Florida, in February 1945, with the Navy supplying real PT boats; set design gave the Florida locations a passable resemblance to the Philippines. Much of the crew had served: cinematographer Joseph H. August was a former lieutenant commander, second unit director James Havens a former Navy captain, and star Robert Montgomery a former Navy lieutenant commander who had actually commanded a PT boat at Guadalcanal and Normandy, winning the Bronze Star and French decoration. Onscreen credits carry the ranks: "Directed by John Ford, Captain U.S.N.R." ^{2 • 8 • 9}

Ford worked with unusual intensity; John Wayne said he was "working with more concentration than I had ever seen." Near the end of filming Ford fell 20 feet from a scaffold and fractured his leg, and Montgomery directed the remaining scenes, mainly inserts for the battle sequences. Ford then returned to his Field Photographic Unit in Europe, leaving post-production and scoring to others; he objected to some of the heavy music added without him, though his signature tune "Red River Valley" remains. According to a February 1945 Hollywood Reporter item, he donated his entire salary on the film to a fund for rehabilitating 168 Navy men who had worked on his films.^{9 • 8 • 10}

History and liberties

The film is largely realistic, and the U.S. Navy's cooperation, acknowledged in the onscreen credits along with the Army, Coast Guard, and Office of Strategic Services, gave it authenticity. It nevertheless took liberties. Robert Barrat's General MacArthur is portrayed in highly idealized terms consistent with the general's public reputation at the time. More consequentially, Wayne's Rusty Ryan, based on Lt. Robert Kelly, was written as a hotheaded maverick; the real Kelly, offended by the portrayal, joined the nurse on whom Donna Reed's character was based in suing MGM for defamation, and the studio settled out of court for a nominal sum.²

The real evacuation of MacArthur from Corregidor by PT boat in February 1942, ahead of the Japanese advance, was a genuine event that the film re-creates; John Wayne recalled that Navy officers on set, who had arrived making disparaging remarks, fell silent as the scene played out.^{7 • 9}

Reception and standing

By the time the film was finished Japan had surrendered, and MGM pushed the release to December 1945. It opened to enthusiastic reviews but low turnout at the box office; critics later noted that its release date, after the war ended, was the most unfortunate thing about it.^{9 • 5} Bosley Crowther of The New York Times (December 26, 1945) called it nostalgic, warm with sentiment, and "full of fight in every foot," and James Agee in The Nation (January 5, 1946) wrote that watching men get on and off PT boats was "made so beautiful and so real that I could not feel one foot of the film was wasted," calling it in nearly everything Ford does with people his finest movie.¹¹

Later assessments have kept that standing. A Naval History Magazine article calls the film a glorification of the PT boat as a "dashing, mysterious surface warrior" while also calling it an unsparing testament to the desperate conditions Bulkeley's PTs faced early in the war.¹² A study of the naval war film genre places it alongside In Which We Serve as a definitive naval war film and tribute to its navy, and one film-history survey calls it "realistic and elegiac" though unjustly neglected. On Rotten Tomatoes it holds a 91% Tomatometer from 11 reviews.^{13 • 2 • 5}

References

1. They Were Expendable (1945), AFI Catalog of Feature Films
2. History in the Media: Film and Television, "Military History on Film and Television: World War II"
3. They Were Expendable, American Film Institute (watch.afi.com)
4. They Were Expendable, Apple TV
5. They Were Expendable, Rotten Tomatoes
6. They Were Expendable, AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center
7. Sheila O'Malley, "TCM Diary: They Were Expendable," Film Comment, May-June 2019
8. They Were Expendable (1945), AFI Catalog, filmography notes
9. John Miller, "Behind the Camera: They Were Expendable," TCM, February 17, 2005
10. They Were Expendable, TCM article
11. The Critics Corner (5/28) - They Were Expendable, TCM
12. Curtis L. Nelson, "They Were Commendable," Naval History Magazine, April 2002
13. The Naval War Film: Genre, History and National Cinema, Manchester Scholarship Online

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › War and historical films (individual works) › War action and adventure › War action films released through 1999 › Released 1934 to 1962

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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