MEN IN WAR Movie Review
1957 Anthony Mann
Anthony Mann's war film is a bleak piece of work. The conventional elements used by Hollywood to put an entertaining gloss on grim subjects are missing—no romantic interests, no humor, no folksy characters, no real sentiment until almost the end. In their place are two actors playing flinty, combative opponents. Lt. Benson (Robert Ryan) has been ordered to lead his patrol to a distant objective, Hill 465. Sgt. Montana (Aldo Ray) means to get his shell-shocked Colonel (Robert Keith) back to safety. Montana has a Jeep; Benson wants it.
When Lt. Benson's platoon is introduced, the men are already at a low ebb. Their truck has been wrecked beyond repair and they've lost radio contact with their battalion. Montana's Jeep is their only chance to complete their mission, and they're not even sure about that. They know that the North Koreans have pushed their forces back and so they find themselves surrounded by snipers and other dangers. Baby-faced Cpl. Zwickley (Vic Morrow) has the shakes, either from disease or terror. Riordan (Phillip Pine) refuses to give up on the radio. Sergeants Killian (James Edwards) and Davis (L.Q. Jones) are the other veterans. Lt. Benson comandeers the Jeep at gunpoint and gets grudging support from Montana, the most experienced and lethal of the group.
Direct contact with the North Koreans is limited to a few short, deadly encounters. The conflict between Benson and Montana is more important. Benson cannot hide his uncertainty about the best way to proceed—if they should proceed at all—while Montana makes it clear that his only goal is to protect his catatonic Colonel. The two men despise and need each other in equal measures, and those are the only emotions that are revealed. These guys are names and ranks and little more. The viewer also sees a couple of pictures of families and a pin-up torn from a magazine. That's it; no conversations about sweethearts back home, no flashbacks. The focus is strictly limited to the war as these guys see it on the ground.
The details of combat are less certain. Would a veteran who knows that he is surrounded by snipers and that his companions are all ahead of him really stop to pick flowers? That's the most glaring example of dubious tactics, but not the only one. Even so, it is not a serious error because Ray and Ryan are both in top form. Ray's thick-bodied, swaggering bravado is a perfect counterpoint to Ryan's dark intelligence and perseverance in the face of his own indecision. Even when the rest of the action is slogging at a slow pace, their divided loyalties are sharp.
Working with cinematographer Ernest Haller, who shared an Oscar for Gone with the Wind, Mann makes the unforgiving landscape an important part of the story. They give the film the same somber tone that Mann achieves so often in his westerns. That fatalism will never be as popular as Hollywood's conventional escapism, but for this kind of war film, it is a perfect approach.
Cast: Robert Ryan (Lt. Benson), Robert Keith (The Colonel), Aldo Ray (Sgt. Montana), Vic Morrow (Cpl. Zwickley), Phillip Pine (Sgt. Riordan), Nehemiah Persoff (Sgt. Lewis), James Edwards (Sgt. Killian), L.Q. (Justus E. McQueen) Jones (Sgt. Davis), Scott Marlowe (Pvt. Meredith), Adam Kennedy (Pvt. Maslow), Race Gentry (Pvt. Haines), Walter Kelley (Pvt. Ackerman), Anthony Ray (Pvt. Penelli), Robert Normand (Pvt. Christensen), Michael Miller (Pvt. Lynch), Victor Sen Yung (Korean sniper); Written by: Philip Yordan, Ben Maddow; Cinematography by: Ernest Haller; Music by: Elmer Bernstein; Technical Advisor: John Dickson. Producer: Security, Sidney Harmon. Running Time: 100 minutes. Format: VHS, Beta.