The Marines Are Coming (1934)
When Lt. "Wild Bill" Traynor, bad boy of the Marine Corps, arrives at a San Diego Marine Base, he is surprised to discover he has been assigned to duty under his old rival, Captain Benton (Conrad Nagel). While eluding the advances of Rosita (Armida), a Latin dancer, Bill becomes involved with Benton's fiancee, Dorothy Manning (Esther Ralston), whom he quickly wins and Benton accepts the impending marriage. On his wedding eve, Bill, in the company of Rosita, becomes involved in a fracas in a gambling joint in nearby Tia Juana. Rosita disappears and Dorothy calls off the wedding. As Dorthy sails for Latin America, Bill resigns in disgrace from the Marines, but re-enters as a Private. Ordered to duty in Ponta Miguel, Bill discovers that Dorothy's father (Hale Hamilton) is the governor. His old nemesis Benton has Bill sent to the guardhouse and Bill is vowing revenge when he is released, only to find that Benton is being held prisoner by a jungle bandit known as The Torch (George Regas.) Posing as a drunk and renegade, Bill enters the bandit's camp and, by mending a disabled machine gun, wins the confidence of the bandit leader. Bill later mans the gun against the bandits who have prepared a trap for the Marine patrol searching for Benton.
Hold Everything...Here's WILLIAM HAINES IN "THE MARINES ARE COMING"
South Vermont Avenue, California, USA
(Photograph)
Mack Sennett Studios - 1712 Glendale Blvd., Silver Lake, Los Angeles, California, USA
(Studio)
Final film of William Haines, who retired from acting and became a successful interior decorator.
This film's initial USA television broadcast took place in New York City Tuesday 22 August 1939 on New York City's newly launched experimental television station W2XBS, which would not reach commercial status as WNBT (Channel 1) until almost 2 years later on 29 June 1941. Post-WWII tele viewers got their first look at it in Boston Sunday 9 January 1949 on WBZ (Channel 4), and in Cincinnati Thursday 6 October 1949 on WKRC (Channel 11), although an earlier undocumented airing on WLW-T (Channel 4) is also likely.
The failure of the original copyright holder to renew the film's copyright resulted in it falling into public domain, meaning that virtually anyone could duplicate and sell a VHS/DVD copy of the film. Therefore, many of the versions of this film available on the market are either severely (and usually badly) edited and/or of extremely poor quality, having been duped from second- or third-generation (or more) copies of the film.