Nicely crafted World War II movie about the Salerno landings, and one infantry division in particular, as it moves inland to capture a farmhouse. Lewis Milestone directed this one with a real feeling for light and sun; and the Robert Rossen script, though it gets awfully poetic at times, and arguably pretentious, gets the job done. There is a song sung over the credits and at the end that suggests the Popular Front of the late thirties, which this movie in many ways evokes.
One's response to this movie will probably depend on one's tolerance for artifice. This is a very ambitious movie, almost an "art" movie, and it was sold by it studio, 20th Century-Fox, to a smaller distributor shortly after its release. This is a decidedly leftish takes on the war, with anxiety-driven soldiers muttering the same phrases over and over, the way small children sing song to help them sleep when they're afraid of the dark.
I like this one. It's ambitious and poetic and at times absurd, but it deals with fear in a realistic way that must have made it seem almost unpatriotic at the time of its release. The characters aren't drawn with any great depth, but they seldom are in war movies. Milestone strove for effects in this one, and achieved them, and some people didn't like what he did, among them James Agee. I say "tough". It took guts to make this, and while its aesthetic is at times questionable, even hokey, I find the intentions at all times admirable.
One's response to this movie will probably depend on one's tolerance for artifice. This is a very ambitious movie, almost an "art" movie, and it was sold by it studio, 20th Century-Fox, to a smaller distributor shortly after its release. This is a decidedly leftish takes on the war, with anxiety-driven soldiers muttering the same phrases over and over, the way small children sing song to help them sleep when they're afraid of the dark.
I like this one. It's ambitious and poetic and at times absurd, but it deals with fear in a realistic way that must have made it seem almost unpatriotic at the time of its release. The characters aren't drawn with any great depth, but they seldom are in war movies. Milestone strove for effects in this one, and achieved them, and some people didn't like what he did, among them James Agee. I say "tough". It took guts to make this, and while its aesthetic is at times questionable, even hokey, I find the intentions at all times admirable.