To the Shores of Tripoli is a 1942 American Technicolor film directed by H. Bruce Humberstone and starring John Payne, Maureen O'Hara and Randolph Scott.

When the film was in post-production the Pearl Harbor attack occurred, causing the studio to shoot a new ending in which Payne's character re-enlists.

The supporting cast features Nancy Kelly, Maxie Rosenbloom, Harry Morgan, and Alan Hale Jr.

Wealthy Culver Military Academy drop-out and playboy Chris Winters enlists in the U.S. Marine Corps, where he meets his drill instructor Gunnery Sergeant Dixie Smith and falls in love with a Navy nurse, Lieutenant Mary Carter.

[3] The original planned ending was a simple romantic coupling with Maureen O'Hara's Navy nurse, but after Pearl Harbor, it switched to John Payne signing up for war.

For, with typical cinematic license, it assumes that one arrogant kid, protected by a sergeant's strange sentiment, could violate every rule in the book.

"[4] Variety, however, wrote that the film "has landed well up to the front of the series of army, navy and air corps features which are doing good business, helped no little by current events ... Payne and Scott make an entertaining pair of fighters.

"[7] John Mosher of The New Yorker found that the target practice scenes had "a quiet charm" and wrote that "No one could look more military than Randolph Scott.