Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Good depiction of the life of Ira Hamilton Hayes, the native American who was one of the six marines who famously raised the US flag on Iwo Jima in WW2. Having already seen Clint Eastwood's "Flags of Our Fathers", I knew the basic story of Hayes. There is much more depth here, as Flags of Our Fathers covered the lives of three marines, not just Hayes.Plot and direction are solid. Director Delbert Mann does overdo some of the detail though, and the movie does drift occasionally. Tony Curtis is good in the lead role, though he maybe overdoes the country-bumpkin persona, making Hayes look like Forrest Gump, to a degree. It comes across as a bit patronising.

This is the sad and touching story of Ira Hayes, with a fine acting job by Tony Curtis. Do not expect action scenes with battles and heroics. There is only a brief section that takes place on Iwo Jima;the rest is drama. Some may argue about this or that point of historical accuracy-- with good reason probably--but when all that is done, we're left with just a good drama about a young man who could not cope with the bizarre role of 'national hero' that fate forced upon him. The story is about how events outside his control affected his relationships with friends, family, his community, comrades and his country. We wish life could have turned out better for such a decent man.

This film is a somewhat accurate account of Ira Hayes' story, and is well-meaning, but it suffers from the fatal miscasting of Tony Curtis. Curtis certainly tries hard, but the very idea of a Brooklyn-voiced actor with striking good-looks slathered in bronzer playing an ordinary-looking man from Arizona is ludicrous. Granted there weren't any movie star Native-Americans at the time to fill the role, but you never get a sense of an average guy doing his job: Curtis is far too gorgeous (although the make-up people do try to hamper his looks, unfortunately transforming him into something resembling a Romulan from Star Trek.). And yet some would not only ignore this, but also claim this is Curtis' finest performance. Hardly. See 'The Boston Strangler' or 'The Sweet Smell of Success" or 'The Defiant Ones." As for the film, it is relentlessly moody and downbeat, with an equally moody music score. The Iwo Jima material is almost right, but marred by the idea that Hayes would become a mess because of the loss of James Franciscus' character. Not that the fictional character is so bad, but the dull acting of Franciscus makes him impossible to care about. Since the film takes great pains in making this character so important to Hayes, it should be handled by a much more powerful acting presence than a stiff second-rate TV actor. Meanwhile, Hayes' fame rests with his helping put up the famous flag at Iwo Jima and then be put through the war bond drive and publicity grind stateside, yet the two others(Gagnon and Bradley) who were also involved in both flag raising and publicity war bond tour are barely in this film. 'Flags of Our Fathers' takes full advantage of this character interaction, but this film ignores it almost completely (granted it could have been due to rights issues from Gagnon and Bradley).But it IS a story that was important to tell and worth watching, regardless. Sadly it was not a success back in 1961 and remains obscure to this day. Possibly 'Flags of Our Fathers' will give it new life.

This is the true story of Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian who became a US Marine and was one of the famous flag raisers on Mt. Surabachi at Iwo Jima. The movie goes into Hayes life after the war as well but unlike many movies of the genre, the story and acting do not lose any steam. In fact, the emotional intensity seems to deepen.Tony Curtiss, who is a WW2 navy veteran {submariner}, gives what I feel is his best performance ever. This story of a simple and fundamentally good man, thrust into a big and dangerous world, is shown without compromise. The movie tells a very real and tragic story about friendship, loss, war and even the dangers of celebrity.In keeping with the authentic telling of this story, even the end is sadly accurate. If you ever visit the National military cemetery in Arlington, VA, you will see the United States Marine Corps War Memorial {often improperly called the Iwo Jima memorial}. The rearmost marine statue is Ira Hayes.