The Naked and the Dead is a 1958 World War II film directed by Raoul Walsh, and based on the 1948 novel of the same name by Norman Mailer.

When Hearn considers abandoning the mission in the face of formidable Japanese opposition, Croft tricks him into underestimating the enemy.

The film was originally to be produced by Paul Gregory and directed by Charles Laughton, and was to be made after The Night of the Hunter.

[5] Press releases announced that Robert Mitchum was to star and that Walter Schumann would compose the score.

[6] Following the box-office failure of The Night of the Hunter, Raoul Walsh replaced Laughton and recruited an uncredited writer to rewrite the Sanders Brothers screenplay.

[10] In August 1958, A.H. Weiler of The New York Times wrote: "Credit director, producer Paul Gregory and especially the writing team of Denis and Terry Sanders with laundering the billingsgate of the original and in extracting the derring-do of the author's impassioned work.

But in so doing they have simply come up with a surface recounting of a platoon doomed to decimation in securing a small island in the Pacific in 1943.