"The Eve of St. Mark" is somewhat unusual for a war movie, especially in its number of oddities. It has a hometown romance of a boy and girl next door. It's set early in WW II with the first Americans being drafted in 1940 - more than a year before the U. S. entered the war. It takes a considerable jump in time from the start in Quizz and Janet's hometown, through San Francisco, and to a couple years later with Quizz and his artillery unit on a South Pacific Island shelling Japanese troop boats heading for an invasion.
The first oddity is that Quizz and Janet grew up together as neighbors, but he never gave her a second thought. Until, that is, he just met her in the city. Now they are deeply in love when he heads out for artillery school and then for San Francisco for overseas assignment. It was pretty clear that his unit would be going to the Hawaiian Islands. But that early draft was for just one year, and it was October 1940 when he was drafted. So, he either reenlisted or was extended and may have found himself in Hawaii at the time the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
The combat sequence of the film was unusual for a war movie. It didn't show ground fighting, shore landings, or front line combat. Rather, Quizz was in an artillery battery. He was located on an island among many that the Japanese were attacking. So, Quizz's big gun was shelling Japanese troop boats in the distance as they were heading to invade another island .
The last oddity was Quizz dreaming of talking with his mom and with Janet about what his gun crew should do. Should they stay and try to knock out as many Japanese boats as possible to hinder their invasion? Or, should they withdraw and try to save themselves before capture? The final outcome is hinted at and partly solved the question for them. Japanese planes strafed their position and knocked out their big gun.
The movie was based on a 1942 play that ran for two years on Broadway. The scenes and camera work had the feel of the stage or filming in close quarters.
