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Reviews
All the Young Men (1960)
Not much of a film
A film I had never heard of. Halliwell's film guide says a marine patrol in Korea is commanded by a black man and the racial tension take precedence over fighting the enemy.
Simple-minded, parsimoniously budgeted war melodrama.
Sidney Poitier is the Sergeant who is given command by the Lieutenant as he is dying.
Alan Ladd is the most experienced but has no stripes. The first part of the film is setting the scene and they end up defending a house against faceless enemy who they machine gun and grenade by the score.
Alan Ladd gets his leg crushed by a tank and they save him The patrol hold out long enough for them to be saved by their own side.
Not much of a film and not one that you would bother seeing again. They spent too little on the story. It was a pity the great Shane ( Alan Ladd) was reduced to this. He rode off in the sunset after saving the town form the baddies just to end up being banal on a snow covered hill side in Korea.
Sidney Poitier was rehearsing for his tough put upon black man roles.
What do they call you boy ? They call me MISTER Tibbs !
Target Unknown (1951)
Clever war film
I watched the film today . I had no great hopes for it as I had never heard of it.
The Times said So so. On reading the other reports I watched it and was pleasantly surprised how good it was.
It was one of the cleverest war films I have seen because it discussed how the prisoners of war were asked questions.
The German interrogator said "They don't know they know" he followed this up with "There is no such thing as an innocent question and no such thing as a valueless statement"
The point was he was able to piece together from various comments that the prisoners made what was going on and what the next raid might be about. This was even though the prisoners did not know the details of the raids themselves.
A clever idea and well executed.
Also for a US film they did not show the British and French characters as clichés.
Worth watching a few times.