This passionate view of the lives of two particular soldiers who are drafted into service in World War II features the baby-faced Tab Hunter and the seemingly overly confidante Aldo Ray as recruits who go through basic training together and basically have to grow up all over again even though they've gone through adolescence and are now young adults. Hunter has a girl at home (Mona Freeman), and Ray smugly tells the others on the train he's on (heading to Marine boot camp in San Diego that he has a ton of girls in the backwoods where he has worked as a lumberjack. This baby Paul Bunyeon is a major flirt and after gaining some attention from a waitress while on leave finds himself attracted to a war widow whom he meets while at a canteen in New Zealand where they are all sent after training. Hunter finds solace briefly with the pretty Dorothy Malone, a USO employee whose husband is off in battle, but the girl back home remains first and foremost on his mind. A trip back home to refreshen him after the difficulties of bootcamp reunites him with family and his girl, and it becomes very apparent to him as to what he will have to do.
Then there are the veterans: Van Heflin, James Whitmore and briefly Raymond Massey, wise old men of the service who provide the moral that every soldier must figure out by themselves. They know from their own personal experience that a military life can be a very lonely life, that duty to country takes over duty to family and takes a toll on a personal life. Your buddies aren't necessarily your friends, although they might surprise you with their humanity when the duties of battle threaten to leave behind casualties. They know that the recruits are being shoved together with people of every race and religion, temperament and level of craftiness which knows no minimall age. This is a war movie that takes the viewer into the pschology of the life of a soldier, and with a huge ensemble, there are moments for everyone to get a moment to reveal a quality or flaw about themselves. The seemingly perfect are not necessarily so perfect anymore and the flawed or cowardly or trouble makers show qualities in themselves that their fellow recruits did not see in them before.
This is huge in scope and features every aspect of battle that you'd expect to see in a movie about World War II. It takes two hours of the lengthy running time to get into battle, and when it does, there is a lot to see in the wide screen. Certainly, a lot happens, and the structure makes it impossible for the film to be entirely perfect. Hunter shows that as an actor, he is much more than a pretty face, and Malone is good as well as the very conflicted woman who gives him a bit of joy as he starts his growing up. Of the ensemble, Perry Lopez is unforgettably good as the smug so-called trouble maker of the group who would go out of his way to save a buddy, showing that his bravado is all surface. A great scene with officers Heflin and Massey is also very well written and impressive, following a few other great scenes where Whitmore and Heflin share basically the exact same scene, reminicing in irony of how they were once like their recruits, but must face up that they joined the military for a career, not because they were forced to. Ray and Heflin in retrospect give the two best performances, mainly because they get the best material. There are obviously casualties, but this presents them as reality and not with too much sympathy or tears. Its directness rather than pathos makes it memorable.
Then there are the veterans: Van Heflin, James Whitmore and briefly Raymond Massey, wise old men of the service who provide the moral that every soldier must figure out by themselves. They know from their own personal experience that a military life can be a very lonely life, that duty to country takes over duty to family and takes a toll on a personal life. Your buddies aren't necessarily your friends, although they might surprise you with their humanity when the duties of battle threaten to leave behind casualties. They know that the recruits are being shoved together with people of every race and religion, temperament and level of craftiness which knows no minimall age. This is a war movie that takes the viewer into the pschology of the life of a soldier, and with a huge ensemble, there are moments for everyone to get a moment to reveal a quality or flaw about themselves. The seemingly perfect are not necessarily so perfect anymore and the flawed or cowardly or trouble makers show qualities in themselves that their fellow recruits did not see in them before.
This is huge in scope and features every aspect of battle that you'd expect to see in a movie about World War II. It takes two hours of the lengthy running time to get into battle, and when it does, there is a lot to see in the wide screen. Certainly, a lot happens, and the structure makes it impossible for the film to be entirely perfect. Hunter shows that as an actor, he is much more than a pretty face, and Malone is good as well as the very conflicted woman who gives him a bit of joy as he starts his growing up. Of the ensemble, Perry Lopez is unforgettably good as the smug so-called trouble maker of the group who would go out of his way to save a buddy, showing that his bravado is all surface. A great scene with officers Heflin and Massey is also very well written and impressive, following a few other great scenes where Whitmore and Heflin share basically the exact same scene, reminicing in irony of how they were once like their recruits, but must face up that they joined the military for a career, not because they were forced to. Ray and Heflin in retrospect give the two best performances, mainly because they get the best material. There are obviously casualties, but this presents them as reality and not with too much sympathy or tears. Its directness rather than pathos makes it memorable.