Ira Hayes was not alone. He was an Indian from Arizona who wanted to do something good and ended up a war hero more or less by accident. The Iwo Jima venture comes rather quick in the film before half of it is done with, while it's the rest of the film that is really interesting. Ira Hayes was only one out of innumerable anonymous post war casualties, getting lost in their traumatic memories, vainly trying to cure them by drink. This was not Tony Curtis' only drive for a serious performance, he made more such than what is generally known, and it's for them he will be remembered in the long run, and this one is perhaps the foremost of them.What is especially remarkable about his interpretation of the role is the extreme sensitivity he displays, his awkardness, his sense of being lost, his painful discomfort when he is first introduced to drink, which actually is one of the main themes of the film: in the US it's against the law to sell liquor to Indians, and not without reason. Their constitution is not fit for alcohol, they can take marijuana and dathura and whatever but not alcohol, which makes them lose control. In the case of Ira Hayes, this is the real tragedy, as drinking is the American way, which he as a celebrity cannot avoid.It's a deeply moving and heart-rending film, while its greatest strength is the consistent and merciless realism. This is American film realism at its best, daring to face any depth of any human tragedy, here even going into a deep-set psychological war trauma, perhaps the worst trauma of all.

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 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.

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** This is a solid study of a historical figure (one of the GIs who raised the flag on Iwo Jima) and how he struggled to deal with the title of "hero" after the photo of the flag raising became a patriotic icon. Curtis, as always, is superb. He was significantly older than Ira when he made the movie (the character of Ira was supposed to be a teenager, yet Curtis was 35), but Curtis is surprisingly youthful looking. Part of that is due to his ability to project youth through his acting, I think. Notice the theme music: sure enough, it's by the same composer of the theme music for the TV show "Combat!", which debuted a year after this movie. The movie uses the same ascending five note refrain.**** Spoiler ahead: ****My disappointment is the ending, which misrepresents the reason that Ira died: he did not die after being disapointed after a tribal election. He died of exposure after a card game ... but that would have spoiled the otherwise Hollywood story, I suppose (at least, that was obviously the decision).