Robert Wagner, Terry Moore, Broderick Crawford and Buddy Ebsen star in this absorbing drama about a young, self-centered recruit who comes of age during WWII. Sam Gifford (Wagner) is a successful cotton planter who treats his sharecroppers as if they were little more than farm machinery. But during combat in the Pacific, as he sees "quality" people crack, endures life under a sadistic officer (Crawford), and learns true friendship, from a "cropper" (Ebsen), Gifford slowly discovers there's more to a person than social class and good breeding.
A callow Southern aristocrat (the charismatically challenged Robert Wagner) acquires character and democratic values in the crucible of combat, via a laboriously complicated script that begins in the middle of things and then loads on explanatory flashbacks like a forklift. On "an island in the Pacific, 1945," the scion of a Tennessee cotton dynasty becomes not only comrade-in-arms but also friend to the sharecroppers he once scorned. Although the jungle island is crawling with Japanese snipers and patrols, the greatest danger comes from U.S. officers who are variously incompetent, "yellow," or--in the case of company commander Broderick Crawford--certifiably insane. Screenwriter Harry Brown wrote the World War II classic A Walk in the Sun 11 years earlier, but the characters here are a dull lot and the dialogue terminally flatfooted. However, director Richard Fleischer blocks his action scenes to take full advantage of the CinemaScope format. --Richard T. Jameson
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
damn good:
A fine '50s war movie that seems like a transition between some of the Hollywood propaganda-ish material that came before and the more cynical military-themed fare of the '60s and '70s. Broderick Crawford is fantastic as the unhinged captain, Waco, (he taunts Robert Wagner's character, calling him by his middle name, Francis, which makes me wonder if, decades later, Warren Oates' character in "Stripes", Sgt. Hulka, delivers the line "Lighten up, Francis" as a screenwriter's tribute. Sorry, that's just the... more info
A Thinking Man's War Movie:
One thing I have learned about reviewing movies is to keep in mind the level of enjoyment experienced, relative to the film and the story it relates. There are numerous very enjoyable, very good films out there that are not remotely Oscar winners, or even artistic successes. This is one of them. This is what I would call a "thinking man's war film," in that it involves much more than combat action sequences by the score. There are social and behavioral issues at play in this story that when combined,... more info
Nothing depresses or disheartens the blood of a soldier on the battle field more than the sudden sharp sound of a rifle shot and:
Gifford (Robert Wagner) plays a Southern landowner who treats his croppers badly... His beautiful wife Jenny (Terry Moore) just saw a side of him she never saw before... Gifford argues that Jenny has just seen his business side... But Gifford only came to realize the error of his rude ways when he was called to active duty and put among the troops in the Pacific theater in World War II... The film opens with Gifford reassigned to a company posted up in the hills, a very isolated area under the command... more info
Good WWII flick:
This is a good 50's era Cinemascope war film about a National Guardsman's harrowing experience after his "deep South" unit is mobilized in WWII, and sent into action during the Pacific campaign. Great cast, including Robert Wagner, Buddy Ebsen, and Broderick Crawford.
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