vernehenzel As a unit of World War II American soldiers makes a daylight landing on the beach of a Pacific island, they are quickly over matched by Japanese troops. They are all killed, except for a pair of survivors, Moe Malamen and Ken. The pair has been left for dead. Moe has faked his death while Ken has been critically wounded, a mortar fragment in his back. Ken is now moaning in the shallow water. Moe puts him over his shoulders and heads into the jungle where they stumble upon a cave in which to hide.In the cave the pair gets acquainted and contemplates their circumstances. Moe then sets out to find food and water and finds the Japanese encampment. Upon Moe's return, he examines Ken's wound and both men realize that Ken's situation is dire. That night Moe goes to the Japanese camp to steal the things necessary to help Ken but is discovered, and must knockout a guard before he can escape with the supplies. But before he leaves, he heads to another tent in the camp and takes a photo from the wall. Back at the tent, Moe operates on Ken with crude tools with the hope that it will work. The following morning, Ken appears to be in better shape and is very thankful for Moe's efforts and guts. Moe counters by saying "Some guts? What kind of guts does it take to stay alive?" Later Moe says "Everything I do for you I do for selfish reasons." A day or two later the men head to the far side of the island to swim and fish in a lagoon but are interrupted by a Japanese guard. The guard discovers one of the GI's shirts, a fight ensues and Moe kills the guard and responds with remorse. Moe buries the body and the pair heads back to the cave where Moe gets drunk to sarcastically "celebrate" his first kill. As the two contemplate the act of killing, Ken attempts to rationalize Moe's killing but Moe will hear none of it. Moe wonders who the Japanese soldier was, what his life was like, and gets drunk. The following morning the two are almost spotted by a Japanese patrol at the front of the cave but remain undiscovered. Moe later heads out to get some fish but is tailed by a Japanese soldier. As Moe approaches the cave Ken sees the Japanese soldier and kills him by throwing his bayonet into the soldier. Moe then heads out to bury the body but is discovered by two more Japanese soldiers and is pinned down with rifle fire. Moe picks up the Japanese soldier's rifle to return fire and kills one of the two soldiers. After running out of bullets, Moe surprises the remaining Japanese soldier and kills the him with a shovel. Upon returning to the cave, Ken continues to console Moe with a line from Saroyan's "The Time of Your Life", "Have no shame in being kindly and gentle, but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret." Feeling brave, Ken suggests a dawn raid on the Japanese camp and Moe agrees to a Sunday morning attack. To there surprise, all the Japanese soldiers are lined up with their leader shouting at them. Then to their astonishment, all the Japanese soldiers shoot themselves. Ken and Moe wonder if the war has come to an end. Sometime later while Moe is burying the squad of dead Japanese soldiers, Ken is attacked by yet another unexpected Japanese soldier and strangles him to death. Moe and Ken move to the camp.After seven months of waiting and bickering, the stress begins to wear on Moe and Ken. A toucan named Uncle Morris becomes a distraction but they wonder if they will ever be found. Indignant at Ken's continued paraplegic condition, they begin to argue more intensely, and the threats and insults begin. Ken grows weary of his existence, his burden. Influenced by Moe's insults, Ken tries to commit suicide but fails. Both men are in utter despair, missing the lives at home in America. Finally on a bright, sunny day, Moe spots a group of three ships off the coast. Moe wonders if they are Allied ships or Japanese. In a moment of uncertainty, he decides they are enemy ships and heads back to Ken. In a moment of irony, Moe tells Ken that there are planes and ships on the other side of the island but Ken doesn't believe it. That night Ken hears something outside their hut. Moe heads outside to see a goat at the edge of the camp. Back in the hut, they wonder where the goat came from and conclude that the goat is a gift from God, from heaven. As they go for a walk, they encounter a herd of goats at the beach and still wonder where they came from. Moe tells a story of war and how the people left over turned over the world to the children who abolished war and turned the whole world into a circus, the Pacific a zoo, an asylum for goats. As Ken consoles Moe, they understand that the goats can't hurt them. The following morning they awake on the beach to find American soldiers tending to the goats and are saved, just in time before the island is used as a nuclear test sight.

kapelusznik18 ***SPOILERS*** It wasn't much of a battle as the attacking US military were caught flat footed by the defending Japanese Marines who wiped them out almost to the last man. With Moe Malumuth, Richard Devon, playing dead he managed to get to a cave on the island where he found the badly injured fellow GI Ken Kennedy, Ron Gans, paralyzed from a blast of mortar fire. With Moe going to case out in the island looking for food and medical supplies from the occupying Japanese troops he manages to kill one of them who tried to do him in, neglecting his rifle and handgun, karate style and failed. Moe later goes into a deep depression in having killed a man, the Japanese Marine, even in self defense in that it being against his both moral and religious teachings.Still after killing once Moe doesn't have any problems in killing some half dozen more Japanese troops until it's heard on the Tokyo Japan radio that the Emperor has ordered the total surrender of the Japanese military to the allied forces! That had the remaining and heartbroken Japs end up committing Harri Kari, with rifles not swords, in order to save face and humiliation in that Japan lost the war! It now turns out to be a fight between the crippled Ken and healthy Moe in them not being able to live together, with Moe forced to look after him day and night, as well as Ken's uncalled for remarks, when he really got angry and pi**d off, about Moe's religious affiliations.***SPOILERS*** Finally kissing and making up both Moe & Ken wait to be rescued that, in being stuck on an uncharted island in the Pacific, takes more then a year for the US Navy and Marines to finally locate them. It's Moe while beach-combing on the far side of the island who spots an entire US Naval armada heading straight for it. With goats and other animals debarked together with a company of US Marines they finally rescue Moe, and later Ken, and it couldn't have been soon enough! The island that both Moe & Ken were stuck on was designated to be plastered off the map in an atomic test explosion called Operation Barnyard, or really Crossrords, the very next day where the two if they stayed there would have been blown to atoms!

asinyne I definitely liked this film more than the other reviewers. Yeah, the battle at the beginning was badly staged and kind of goofy. If the marines fought anything like those guys we would have never won any war period. Afterwards though I really enjoyed what essentially became a tale of survival on a deserted island. Think Castaway here. One of the soldiers is badly injured and depends on the other for almost every single thing he needs. This puts a lot of stress on Moe who is pretty darn high strung anyhow. Basically you have one physically incomplete person and one mentally incomplete person somehow struggling through all their issues while wondering if they're ever gonna see civilization again or simply die in the middle of nowhere.This is more of a psychological film as opposed to the typical war film. Yeah, there is lots of fighting and killing but what happens internally to the two stranded GIs is what the movie is all about. I found that it kept my interest very well indeed and wish I could have given it a 7 and a half. The actor playing Moe was really good and his face is pretty recognizable. He played lots of heavies and gangsters back in the sixties.

cutterccbaxter A couple of soldiers are stranded on an island in the Pacific during WW II. Richard Devon plays Moe, who in civilian life is a happily married accountant. Ron Kennedy plays Ken who is a pitching prospect for the Yankees in civilian life. At first Moe and Ken must survive hiding in a cave as the island is occupied by the Japanese. They periodically kill off a Japanese soldier here and there, and eventually the Japanese soldiers figure there is no way to get out of the movie other than to kill themselves. Moe and Ken then have the island and the movie entirely to themselves. Ken is kind of a whiner (like most Yankee players and fans) and he gets on Moe's nerves. At one point Moe says to Ken, "Why you, I oughta..." For a low budget "war film" the movie is actually more thoughtful than action oriented. I'm guessing this stems from the Philip Roth story on which it is based. The fighting sequences aren't staged particularly well, but I did find myself engrossed in the plight of the two main characters.