We Are the Marines is a 1942

1942 in film

The year 1942 in film involved some significant events, in particular the release of a film consistently rated as one of the greatest of all time, Casablanca.-Events:...

 full-length documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

. It was directed by Louis De Rochemont

Louis de Rochemont

Louis de Rochemont was an American film maker known for creating, along with Roy E. Larsen from Time, Inc., the monthly theatrically shown newsreels The March of Time. His brother Richard de Rochemont was also a producer and writer on The March of Time.The newsreels defined film news from 1935 to...

 and distributed by 20th Century Fox

20th Century Fox

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...

.

Plot

The early portions of the film deal with the history of the Corps, from Colonial times to the 1942. The film's midsection details the arduous training procedure of the Few and the Proud at Parris Island

Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island

Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island is an military installation located within Port Royal, South Carolina, approximately south of Beaufort, the community that is typically associated with the installation. MCRD Parris Island is used for the training of enlisted Marines...

and elsewhere. Finally, wartime newsreel footage is adroitly blended with dramatized re-enactments to illustrate the contributions, and the utter necessity of the marines in World War II.