WWII movies have been done left and right in the 64 years since the war ended, some good and some bad. But the heyday was in the 50s and 60s when memories and wounds from the war were still fresh. What these movies provided were a chance to put together a good story with a wide variety of characters. Movies like The Dirty Dozen and Kelly's Heroes stand out as just two examples, war movies with male-dominated casts full of great character actors. Not as well known but made over 15 years earlier, 1950's Halls of Montezuma fits that bill.Following the campaigns in the Pacific at Guadalcanal and Tarawa, Lt. Carl Anderson (Richard Widmark) prepares his men for another assault on a Japanese-held island. Anderson's been going through a bit of a breakdown recently as just 7 men from his original platoon have survived. He's torn up inside at the thought of all the men he's lost and gets horrific headaches under stress. It's after the Marines hit the beach and have moved inland that the real trouble starts. The Japanese garrison unleashes hundreds of rockets at the advancing Marines. The problem, no one can spot the rocket emplacements.
Assigned to lead a patrol from his commander, Lt. Colonel Gilfillan (Richard Boone), Anderson must find the rockets and call their location in before a huge push the next day. Among the patrol are the few men Anderson genuinely cares about and wants to see make it through, the original members of the platoon. Leading that group is Pigeon Lane (Jack Palance), a former boxer suckered into the Marines, Coffman (Robert Wagner), the youngster trying to figure out who saved him at Tarawa, Doc Jones (Karl Malden), Anderson's close friend, Cpl. Conroy (Richard Hylton), a former student of Anderson's, Pretty Boy Riley (Skip Homeier), a soldier trying to rise above his past, Slattery (Bert Freed), the best soldier in the bunch and the biggest troublemaker, and Sgt. Zelenko (Neville Brand), the tough sergeant. Then for good measure there's a Japanese translator, a war correspondent (Jack Webb), and a new recruit along.
I've written before about how much I like 'men on a mission' movies, and this certainly qualifies with the cast full of recognizable character actors. But instead of just dropping the viewer into the platoon, we get an interesting technique to get to know the platoon. With a handful of flashbacks, we see their interactions in the group, some while in the unit, others as far back as their civilian days. It helps then when the platoon starts getting picked off by the Japanese. These aren't random, faceless soldiers, we know something about them and their makeup.
For a movie made just 5 years since the end of WWII, director Lewis Milestone tells it pretty straight. These aren't superhero G.I. Joe soldiers. Widmark is close to cracking up, and some of his men aren't too far behind. The more I watch of him, the more I think Widmark is one of the more underrated, underappreciated actors to come out of the late 1940s. As well, the Japanese soldiers aren't presented as stereotypical, one-dimensional soldiers. The whole movie has a clear anti-war stance. The action, while good, is understated. Characters are shot off-screen or hit by shrapnel as they head for a foxhole. And made in 1950 years before blood squibs became commonplace in war movies and westerns, the violence is fairly graphic, including one hand-to-hand encounter with a Japanese sniper.
The DVD has the movie in standard presentation, it was released about 3 years before widescreen was used, a trailer, and a handful of trailers for other Fox war movie DVDs. It's not a great WWII movie, but it's certainly a good one. Widmark leads a strong cast, and in general, Halls of Montezuma was ahead of its time when dealing with some of the deeper issues that war movies would later explore.
Halls of Montezuma (1950): ***/****
I've written before about how much I like 'men on a mission' movies, and this certainly qualifies with the cast full of recognizable character actors. But instead of just dropping the viewer into the platoon, we get an interesting technique to get to know the platoon. With a handful of flashbacks, we see their interactions in the group, some while in the unit, others as far back as their civilian days. It helps then when the platoon starts getting picked off by the Japanese. These aren't random, faceless soldiers, we know something about them and their makeup.
For a movie made just 5 years since the end of WWII, director Lewis Milestone tells it pretty straight. These aren't superhero G.I. Joe soldiers. Widmark is close to cracking up, and some of his men aren't too far behind. The more I watch of him, the more I think Widmark is one of the more underrated, underappreciated actors to come out of the late 1940s. As well, the Japanese soldiers aren't presented as stereotypical, one-dimensional soldiers. The whole movie has a clear anti-war stance. The action, while good, is understated. Characters are shot off-screen or hit by shrapnel as they head for a foxhole. And made in 1950 years before blood squibs became commonplace in war movies and westerns, the violence is fairly graphic, including one hand-to-hand encounter with a Japanese sniper.
The DVD has the movie in standard presentation, it was released about 3 years before widescreen was used, a trailer, and a handful of trailers for other Fox war movie DVDs. It's not a great WWII movie, but it's certainly a good one. Widmark leads a strong cast, and in general, Halls of Montezuma was ahead of its time when dealing with some of the deeper issues that war movies would later explore.
Halls of Montezuma (1950): ***/****
No comments:
Post a Comment