Battleground (1949)
Country: US
Technical: bw 118m
Director: William A. Wellman
Cast: Van Johnson, John Hodiak, Ricardo Montalban, James Whitmore
Synopsis:
During the 1944 Ardennes offensive, the men of the 101st Airborne Division are sent up to counter the German advance. Without armour, and camped around the Belgian town of Bastogne, they soon find themselves surrounded by the enemy and deprived of air support by a persistent blanket of fog.
Review:
A striking example of the post-war tendency towards war films that dwelt on the multifaceted inner life of the men rather than combat. Here the qualms felt by individual soldiers about what they are engaged in range from the absence of creature comforts to the homesick and the battle-fatigued wisher after a dependency discharge; even the coward is treated with understanding and respect by the rest of the platoon. A talk piece, then, with firefights few and far between, and in this respect the actors shine, particularly Johnson, Whitman and Hodiak. An in-house MGM production (with some exteriors at Fort Lewis, Washington) does fair justice to the snowbound pine forest of the Ardennes, but the cost is a loss of a strategic purview, with a notable lack of the celebrated German armour, and an all-out assault on Bastogne that all but obliterates the town but never seems to affect the men in the woods outside. The last shot, though, as the men march proudly past their relief while sounding off in unison, is a winner.
Country: US
Technical: bw 118m
Director: William A. Wellman
Cast: Van Johnson, John Hodiak, Ricardo Montalban, James Whitmore
Synopsis:
During the 1944 Ardennes offensive, the men of the 101st Airborne Division are sent up to counter the German advance. Without armour, and camped around the Belgian town of Bastogne, they soon find themselves surrounded by the enemy and deprived of air support by a persistent blanket of fog.
Review:
A striking example of the post-war tendency towards war films that dwelt on the multifaceted inner life of the men rather than combat. Here the qualms felt by individual soldiers about what they are engaged in range from the absence of creature comforts to the homesick and the battle-fatigued wisher after a dependency discharge; even the coward is treated with understanding and respect by the rest of the platoon. A talk piece, then, with firefights few and far between, and in this respect the actors shine, particularly Johnson, Whitman and Hodiak. An in-house MGM production (with some exteriors at Fort Lewis, Washington) does fair justice to the snowbound pine forest of the Ardennes, but the cost is a loss of a strategic purview, with a notable lack of the celebrated German armour, and an all-out assault on Bastogne that all but obliterates the town but never seems to affect the men in the woods outside. The last shot, though, as the men march proudly past their relief while sounding off in unison, is a winner.
Country: US
Technical: bw 118m
Director: William A. Wellman
Cast: Van Johnson, John Hodiak, Ricardo Montalban, James Whitmore
Synopsis:
During the 1944 Ardennes offensive, the men of the 101st Airborne Division are sent up to counter the German advance. Without armour, and camped around the Belgian town of Bastogne, they soon find themselves surrounded by the enemy and deprived of air support by a persistent blanket of fog.
Review:
A striking example of the post-war tendency towards war films that dwelt on the multifaceted inner life of the men rather than combat. Here the qualms felt by individual soldiers about what they are engaged in range from the absence of creature comforts to the homesick and the battle-fatigued wisher after a dependency discharge; even the coward is treated with understanding and respect by the rest of the platoon. A talk piece, then, with firefights few and far between, and in this respect the actors shine, particularly Johnson, Whitman and Hodiak. An in-house MGM production (with some exteriors at Fort Lewis, Washington) does fair justice to the snowbound pine forest of the Ardennes, but the cost is a loss of a strategic purview, with a notable lack of the celebrated German armour, and an all-out assault on Bastogne that all but obliterates the town but never seems to affect the men in the woods outside. The last shot, though, as the men march proudly past their relief while sounding off in unison, is a winner.