Screaming Eagles (1956) User Reviews

Their Part Of The War

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 30 May 2011]

Screaming Eagles is the story of a company that dropped into France hours before the dawn of D-Day and what happened to them. If you saw The Longest Day and remember the characters of Robert Ryan and John Wayne you know what the total mission of the 101st Airborne Division was. This film could probably be edited right into The Longest Day, but for the presence of Tom Tryon who starred here and was also one of the many stars in The Longest Day.

Jan Merlin plays the Lieutenant in charge of Dog company and just before zero hour for them, Private Tryon gets himself stinking drunk as soldiers are wont to do on occasion. But this wasn't the time for it and the rest of the squad reluctantly takes him along.

Of course Tryon pulls himself together and comes through for his unit as you would expect he would in this film. The odyssey of this company is the subject of the film. Very few make it through to link up with the rest of 101st Airborne.

Merlin spouting all kinds of philosophical dicta was out of place in a war film of this kind. And quite frankly in the real world Tryon would have been sent to the stockade and court marshaled. Then maybe he might have gotten to the continent later in the war.

Former Miss France Jacqueline Beer makes an appearance in Screaming Eagles as a French farm girl who helps our GIs.

The film is an Allied Artists Production and shot on the cheap. Still it is entertaining and exciting in spots and the battle sequences are well done. War film fans might like it.

B-level

[SnoopyStyle · 5/10 · 6 June 2019]

In June 1944, the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne is stationed in England. Mason is the outcast after his drunken rampage. They are dropped into Normandy on D-Day to take an important bridge. They are soon lost in the chaos. They capture German soldiers with French girl Marianne doing the translating.

The action style is pretty old fashion. It's about a dozen B-actors and the only one I recognize is Robert Blake. Some of the plot is questionable. It takes away from the realism. Of course, the action is not always the most real. This is a simple old fashion war movie. The scale is not that grand. Most of the characters are non-dimensional. The most infuriating is that the soldiers talk too loudly and too often in enemy territories. It's in line with most B level war movies.

Routine World War II Combat Thriller

[zardoz-13 · 5/10 · 18 July 2015]

"Star in the Dust" director Charles F. Haas' routine, black & white, World War II mission-oriented actioneer is based ostensibly on the real-life exploits of the 101st Airborne Division nicknamed 'the Screaming Eagles.' The action takes place before the Allies launched their historic, cross-channel invasion of France at Normandy during on June, 1944, when paratroopers were dropped behind enemy lines to capture bridges intact from the occupying Germans. A couple of new soldiers, Private Mason (Thomas Tryon of "The Glory Guys") and Private Corliss (Martin Milner of "Route 66"), join the 101st before the unit goes into action. Unfortunately, Mason alienates himself from the rest of the company when he embarks on a drunken spree as a result of a Dear John letter from his sweetheart. Naturally, everybody is upset with Mason's disruptive behavior. He turns over the furniture in the barracks and aggravates his commanding officer, Lieutenant Pauling (Jan Merlin of "Illegal"), who threatens to leave him behind. After Mason sobers up, Pauling decides to let him join them as they set off on their mission. The Screaming Eagles bail out over enemy country, but they miss their landing zone and wind up lost in the countryside. Indeed, this happened in real life. Once they've landed, Pauling warns his men not to exchange shots with the Germans. Naturally, Mason screws up when he kills a German soldier with his bayonet. The dying German loosens off a rifle shot and chaos ensues. Mason is reprimanded for his actions. Moments later, during a shooting incident involving a German soldier, Pauling is blinded by power burns from gunshots. He spends the remainder of "Screaming Eagles" wearing a bandage over his eyes. Mason is ordered to take care of Pauling, and he leads the wounded officer around like a tour guide. During a firefight, Mason captures a German soldier and a French woman. They use the French girl to communicate with the German. Most of the action in "Screaming Eagles" is enough to make an eagle scream at the absurdity of it all. Haas stages several combat scenes without a shred of believability. For example, two G.I.s approach a house in plain view of its windows and are surprised when Germans with a machine gun open fire on them. During a body search of the French woman, the G.I.s turn their backs on their German prisoner. Mind you, the German doesn't do anything, but it would have been a prime opportunity for him to engage in some desperate behavior. Later, when they exploit the German prisoner to check on his army with a radio, the Americans neglect to supervise him, and he notifies his own forces by leaving the circuit open so his commanding officer will be aware of the presence of the Americans. Interestingly enough, the G.I.s don't carry out their mission. During the mission, the Americans lose nine men. "Screaming Eagles" has an interesting cast. For a change, veteran villain Jan Merlin actually plays a sympathetic, good guy. Robert Blake has a small role as the token Hispanic in the outfit, and Alvy Moore of "Green Acres" plays it straight as a machine gun toting serviceman. Paul Burke, Mark Damon, and Martin Milner also flesh out a good cast. Altogether, "Screaming Eagles" amounts to very little to scream about because of its unrealistic combat sequences.

Interesting and unusual

[patsw · 2 September 2002]

Tom Tryon's first movie. He is over the top as being the most unlikeable soldier in the 101st Division. Some 20 miles behind German lines on Day-D minus 12 hours they are casually taking prisioners. They encounter a tri-lingual French woman for sweet talking the Germans who let them pass thru to the American lines in the North. It's all highly improbable. The bad attitude shown by Private Mason (Tryon) should have gotten him transfered into a less critical position. I think of all the unlikely things in this movie, the fact that no one beats the stuffing out of Mason is the most unusual thing about the movie. Another strange thing about this movie, is that the unit doesn't accomplish its mission, you get reminded at the end what they were supposed to do in the first place.

Hunters from the Sky

[sol-kay · 6/10 · 2 June 2011]

***SPOILERS*** True story about the US 101st Airborne divisions drop behind enemy lines in order to secure a number of bridges before the Germans could blow them up as the allies were about to launch the D-Day invasion of Normandy. It took a lot of explaining to his men for Lt.Pauling, Jan Marlin, to convince them to have drunk disorderly and a bit psychotic, that's after he got a Dear John letter from his girl back home, Pvt. Mason, Tom Tryon, to go along with them on their pre-invasion jump that could well have cost them all their lives by him screwing things up.

Sobering up after a night of heavy drinking Pvt. Mason got his act together and in the end was responsible for getting his unit the 502th out of the mess that they, by over shooting their landing zone, got themselves into. From that point on it was a fight for survival for the paratroopers who were desperately trying to link up with their main force some 20 miles away. It was local French farm girl Marianne, Jackie Beer, who helped the paratroopers in her being able to speak and understand German that kept German POW Hans, Robert Boon, from alerting his fellow Nazis on the radio that there was something up, the 101st, behind their lines.

Pvt. Mason who was at first accused of alerting the Germans by killing one, with his bayonet, just as he was about to open fire on him later proved his worth to the airborne unit by saving his commanding officer Lt. Pauling's life by taking his hand and guiding him back to the advancing allied troops after he was blinded by a flash from a Nazi's gun muzzle.

Realistc film about the D-Day or pre-D-Day invasion with the American & allied troops suffering almost as many losses as the Germens did. We get to see just how hard it was to make the invasion a success with the mostly green US troops, many in combat for the first time, up against the best that the German Army had to offer. As for French girl Marianne she in the end became an honorary 101st Screaming Eagle for the help she provided in keeping the lost in the woods US paratroopers from all getting killed and captured by the German troops. As for Pvt. Mason he soon forget about his Dear John letter from the states and finally got down to business in fighting the war that he ignored, by drinking himself drunk, for so long.

Interesting plot twists that make this better than many war movies.

[mark-460 · 7/10 · 17 February 2000]

One interesting thing about watching multi-character movies is the increased chance of spotting future stars. War movies are good for doing that especially. In this movie, several minor actors became bigger stars. Another highlight of this movie are the use of script devices that add energy to the plot. Imagine being blind behind enemy lines. Or become frustrated with language barriers to the point of using creativity to overcome that hindrance. It is worth a look.

Who is doing the screaming? The actors or the audience?

[JohnHowardReid · 5/10 · 23 August 2017]

Producers: Samuel Bischoff, David Diamond. Copyright 1956 by Allied Artists. No New York opening. U.S. release: 27 May 1956. U.K. release through Associated British-Pathé: September 1957 (sic). Australian release through Paramount: 4 December 1959 (sic). 7,310 feet. 82 minutes. Cut to 68 minutes in Australia in order to attract bookings as a supporting feature in suburban and rural cinemas.

SYNOPSIS: "The Screaming Eagles", a platoon of battle-scarred soldiers, acquires a surly new recruit who saves the life of the lieutenant, who has been blinded in action. The two make their way to a German-held farmhouse, where...

COMMENT: Despite the promising lure of its title, this turns out as a distinctly mediocre war picture, — thanks to little action, a bit of stock footage, and a whole bash of dreadfully routine dialogue. The script's characters are a tepid lot and no attempt is made to flesh them out. In fact, there are only two worthwhile performances: Jan Merlin as the boyish, personable lieutenant, and newcomer Jacqueline Beer. The direction is reasonably smooth, but dull and uninteresting.

OTHER VIEWS: The familiar situation of the mixed-up outsider regenerated by the comradeship of battle, is here given a second- rate adventure story treatment. With ham-heroic acting and indifferent technique, it presents but a slight tribute to the 101st Airborne Infantry Division. — Monthly Film Bulletin.

Whoa, so bad

[likbikarmy · 1/10 · 6 June 2019]

As a movie, as a story, this flops. Such a terribly performed and written movie. It's as though someone woke up, said, "hey, let's do a tribute for D-Day, we will feature a unit from the 101st, and who do we have hanging around the studio?" Then, a secretary walks out the door, finds a few folks loafing about and points out, "You, you, you, and you all. Wanna make a movie? Here's your lines, now go do it." And, in one day it was done. Oh, let's add some WW2 footage to the stock, backlot scenery for realism. Just a poorly done movie in all regards. The whole Tom Tyron chomping on a cigar is right out of a comic book.

Allied Artist Comic War Action, Just Missing The Bowery Boys

[verbusen · 4/10 · 6 June 2019]

I took this as a serious war film, TCM showed it on the 75th anniversary of D-Day in 2019. I was into it at the start thinking I had found a lost gem similar to Attack!, released around the same period. But it devolved into a stupid comic book war film similar to a ulta low budget 60s war film like the L.Q. Jones drive in flick Iron Angel. SPOILERS When they storm the house they can throw the grenade through the windows from the fence they are at, they instead go up to the house and lose two guys. They let the German soldier hang out in front of the radio that's too obvious a mistake. They get the German troops to leave the area, not buying it. When I saw the ending credits stating it as an Allied Artist film I realized I was watching trash. It could have been decent but it turned into comic book bunk, like a 1940's war film. I'm surprised the DOD and Army put their name on it. It must have been for recruitment purposes to get teens at drive-ins to enlist. The only thing it was missing since it was so silly was the Bowery Boys or more specifically Huntz Hall's Satch. They were AA acts at the same time this was made and would have fit in great with the comic book script. 4 of 10 and that's being generous for the bad war film fans out there.

Very good WW II film about the paratroopers in D-Day

[SimonJack · 8/10 · 4 April 2022]

"Screaming Eagles" is a very good World War II movie about the airborne role in Operation Overlord, better known as D-Day. This story follows 15 men of a platoon, including the platoon leader, of Company D of the 502nd Airborne Infantry Regiment. The 502nd then was part of the 101st Airbourne Division, known as the Screaming Eagles.

The opening has the men of Lt. Pauling's platoon in England where they have been training for weeks for the assault on northern France. After three new replacements arrive, there are a couple more days before they get the word that D-Day is set for the next day, June 6, 1944. So, that night, they begin the assault phase of Overlord, called Operation Neptune. They are part of more than 13,000 Americans of the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions that parachute into northern France the night of June 5. The naval bombardment and Allied troop assaults would take place the next day at five landing sites, with beaches named (West to East) Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword.

The missions of the airborne units were to secure bridges and block German reinforcements from reaching the coast at Utah Beach. As this film shows, the pilots didn't see the ground signals for drop zones, and when German anti-aircraft guns started firing on the planes, the troops jumped as soon as they could. As a result, the units were spread out and scattered over a large area. While they couldn't get organized to take all of their objectives immediately, the various smaller groups assembled on the ground were able to attack Germans at various locations. The resulting chaos confused the Germans so that they weren't able to mount strong reinforcements. And the Allied landings were soon able to break out of their beachheads.

This story shows the engagements and combat that just one third of Lt. Pauling's platoon encountered. While he was blinded by the flash of a German's luger, Pauling could speak French with a young French woman they rescued when they assaulted Germans held up in her family's farmstead. Marianne, in turn, could speak German, so between them they were able to foil the Germans. When Pauling's group reaches the rest of his platoon who are assembled with their company at the bridge that was their mission,10 of his 15 men have been killed.

The cast all do well in their roles. Among them are Tom Tryon as Private Mason, Jan Merlin as Lt. Pauling, Martin Milner as Pvt. Corliss, Jacqueline Beer as Marianne, Robert Blake as Pvt. Hernandez, Pat Conway as Sgt Forrest, and Edward G. Robinson Jr. As Pvt. Smith.

There is one thing missing from this film - or, that would have been good to include. On June 5, the day before D-Day, the 101st Airborne Division men were paid a special visit by Gen. Dwight D., Eisenhower, the Allied Command-in-Chief. But, considering that this movie was made in 1956, and Ike was then sitting as President of the U. S., it was probably too much to ask him to make a cameo appearance back in uniform. And, of course, with the man himself living, no one was about to suggest a stand-in actor.

Many more movies were made about WW II battles and combat. There have been films that focus on strategic planning, intelligence, and espionage. Combat movies have been made that focus on tanks, artillery, medics and field hospitals. There have been many movies made about aerial and naval combat. But many combat films have been about the infantry in Europe, Africa and Asia; and Marines in the South Pacific. That's because there were far more infantry and Marine units with many more operations and battles. Airborne (parachute) units were mostly infantry who were trained for assaults behind enemy lines and then regular ground fighting. So, while they would be called on for assaults, usually at the start of an operation, most of their time would then be spent engaged in ground combat.

A few other movies show airborne training and/or combat jumps during WW II. They include "Parachute Battalion' of 1941, "Objective Burma" of 1945, the British "Paratrooper" of 1953, "The Longest Day" of 1962, and "A Bridge Too Far" of 1977. Some other movies have been made that have scenes of small groups or individuals jumping behind enemy lines. The 1944 film, "Battleground", is a very good film about the 101st Airborne Division that wouldn't retreat or surrender to the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge toward the end of the war. They held out until George Patton's Third Army arrived to reinforce them and push the Germans all the way back into defeat and surrender.

No Realism in 1956 Movies

[mikereaves-46905 · 1/10 · 11 November 2020]

Filmed on a sound stage for the most part. If Saving Private Ryan is a 10 star, this pitiful movie gets 1 star. They lost me when the Lieutenant came in the quonset hut wearing a shiny leather A-2 jacket. The replacements showing up in dress uniforms. I will give them credit for the double buttoned cargo pocketed paratrooper jackets. But in real life these troopers shaved their heads except for a mohawk, and the pitiful Lt had long blonde hair. No wonder audiences gave up films for television in the 1950s.

7 cast members became TV stars

[Cheyenne-Bodie · 23 May 2017]

Tom Tryon ("Texas John Slaughter")

Jan Merlin ("The Rough Riders")

Martin Milner ("Route 66", "Adam-12")

Jacqueline Beer ("77 Sunset Strip")

Paul Burke ("Naked City", "12 O'Clock High")

Pat Conway ("Tombstone Territory")

Robert Blake ("The Richard Boone Show", "Baretta")

The director was Harvard educated Charles F. Haas. Haas' best film was "Platinum High School" with Mickey Rooney, Terry Moore, Dan Duryea, Yvette Mimieux, Richard Jaeckel, and Elisha Cook, Jr. The film was a reworking of "Bad Day at Black Rock". Haas also directed "Showdown at Abilene" with future TV stars Jock Mahoney ("Yancy Derringer"), Grant Williams ("Hawaiian Eye"), and David Janssen ("Richard Diamond"). And Haas directed 4 films highlighting the talents of Mamie Van Doren.

Haas later directed episodes of "Route 66", "77 Sunset Strip", "Alfred Hitchcock Hour", and "The Outer Limits". Haas used Richard Jaeckel again in his "Alfred Hitchcock Hour" and Grant Williams in one of his "Outer Limits". Inger Stevens starred in Haas' "Route 66" and "Alfred Hitchcock Hour."

Haas died in 2011 at the age of 97.

Co-screenwriter David Lang went on to write episodes of "Maverick", "Cheyenne", "Have Gun - Will Travel", "Wanted: Dead or Alive", "The Rebel", and "Tombstone Territory".

Robert Presnell, Jr., the other screenwriter, wrote episodes of "Twilight Zone", "The Eleventh Hour", "Mr. Novak", and "Banacek". He was married for 40 years to Marsha Hunt ("Raw Deal").

The story for "Screaming Eagles" was by two-time Oscar nominee Virginia Kellogg ("White Heat", "Caged").