KOREAN WAR Movie Review

Korean War on Screen

“The war has a bigger meaning. The only trouble is it came along too soon after the real big one. It's hard to sell anybody on it.”

That quote from The Hunters is a relatively accurate assessment of Hollywood's attitude toward the Korean War—or should it be the Korean Police Action? The patriotic we're-all-in-this-together spirit of the World War II films is missing, and no single theme takes its place. Filmmakers never quite knew what they—or their audiences—thought about the Korean conflict. The anti-Communism of the Cold War is certainly evident, but it takes several forms, from rabid Red-baiting with ill-concealed racist undertones, to grudging respect for a committed enemy. In between is a wide streak of ambivalence. An equally strong apprehension runs through the films, too. Though it's seldom mentioned directly, the concept of nuclear destruction looms in the shadowy background.

Sam Fuller was the first director to tackle Korea, but his B-masterpiece, The Steel Helmet, is really a World War II leftover. It's a standard unit picture, with North Koreans taking the roles previously reserved for the Germans and Japanese. When Fuller addresses racial issues, he reflects his audience's immediate domestic concerns.

Battle Circus is a well-made, off-beat Humphrey Bogart vehicle that never really evokes the specifics of Korea. Again, it looks and feels like a misplaced World War II film.

The Bridges at Toko-Ri comes closer to the real issues of the war, and so it is forced into an uncomfortable political stance. As the senior officer in the piece, Frederic March spells out the official military position, but his defense of the war has a hollow ring, and the film's unusual ending underlines its uncertainty. The flying scenes and the footage shot on aircraft carriers are much stronger.

In Men in War, director Anthony Mann reduces the conflict down to its elements. The film is a “lost patrol” story where the main antagonists are two Americans—Robert Ryan and Aldo Ray—who have opposite objectives. The North Koreans are essentially background characters.

The Hunters is splendid in its aerial dogfight scenes between F-86 Saber jets and MIGs. At ground level, though, the plot is a contrived mess. Within that mixed bag are some telling observations about the war. Right after the protagonist (Robert Mitchum) makes that statement about the war being a hard sell because it follows World War II too closely, he makes another admission. He's in it simply because he's good at flying fighters. His support for the war has little to do with politics or morality. He's there because it's fun.

Lewis Milestone's Pork Chop Hill is not meant to be fun. He tells the fact-based story of a battle that's politically important but tactically meaningless. The combat scenes are impressive, and Milestone is able to keep the various facets of the action clear and understandable. At the same time, though, the film was made with the cooperation of the Army, and so it gently suggests and glosses over bureaucratic screw-ups that cost dozens of lives when it ought to be much angrier. Of course, that contradiction is not unusual for this contradictory war.

All the Young Men is another “lost patrol” story. With Sidney Poitier in the lead, it has a highly developed racial consciousness. This one was made in 1960, ten years after Fuller's The Steel Helmet, and though the film is seriously flawed, it does demonstrate the kinds of changes that were occurring in American ideas about race.

Later in the 1960s and '70s, Korea fades quickly from Hollywood's attention. By the time John Frankenheimer made The Manchurian Candidate in 1962, the Korean conflict is simply one plot element in a Byzantine tale of Cold War conspiracies, where political concepts of left and right are turned inside out. Then in 1970, when Robert Altman directed M*A*S*H, the circuit is completed. The Korean War is no longer a smaller version of World War II. It's a preview of Vietnam.