You have to wonder if the success of the Caine Mutiny, arriving on screen two years before, had anything to do with this story of a company commander who is a fruitcake and is finally killed by his men. At the time of its release it was pretty shocking. Wounded men talking about "bubbles" in their chest. Jack Palance as a lieutenant who bleeds to death. And the very idea that a captain in the U. S. Army could be a drunk, a Uriah Heep, and a coward to boot. All pretty shocking in 1956.
Actually the captain, played by Eddie Albert, needn't have been depicted as a wing nut in order to be incompetent. He might just have exemplified the Peter Principle, which, for those who don't know it, states that a person who shows competence in his job is consistently promoted until he reaches a level in the hierarchy that is beyond his skills -- and there he stays. Albert's superior officer, Lee Marvin, explains this to one of Albert's lieutenants. Make Captain Albert less of a disaster by kicking him upstairs to a desk job? Absolutely not. He could never handle it and it would reflect badly on Marvin. So Albert must remain in command of a combat company, getting good men killed right and left.
The budget was very low, the shooting lasted little over a month, and the Army would simply not cooperate for obvious reasons. It shows. The German tanks, described as "really BIG ones", are about the size of a Ford Navigator. They shot it on the back lot in California, which doesn't begin to resemble the Ardennes forest. The property department couldn't even scrape up a facsimile of a German machine gun and seems to have used a British model. Much of the money spent on the film must have gone into the talent because Eddie Albert, Jack Palance, and Lee Marvin are good, as usual. (Oddly, all three had distinguished military records in the Navy, the Air Force, and the Marine Corps, respectively.) It's not a very good movie. There are times when Albert and Palance overact, almost to the point of pain. Of course there's only so much you can do with a role if it's written poorly. (This started as a stage play.) Palance's death scene is drawn out unconscionably and Palance can hardly be said to underplay it. Whatever shock value it had has long gone. The brutality now seems modest. There's a deep flaw in Albert's role too. The consequences of his behavior don't seem disastrous enough, although his character is clearly revolting.
As if the schematic diagram weren't already obvious enough, the score underlines it. On those occasions when Albert cracks up and cuddles his rabbit-fur slippers or crawls into his bunk and pulls the covers over his head, we hear "London Bridge is Falling Down" on the xylophone.
Yet it was a true shocker in its time. I saw it on its release in the El Camino theater in San Bruno, California. Strange that things get stuck in your mind for so long. I even recall the person I saw it with. On the other hand, it was disappointing, seeing this again just now, to find that over the same period my command of German had deteriorated into a kind of benign influence over it. It would be so much more constructive if we could choose which long-term memories to keep and which to discard. Oh -- and a lot more FUN.
Actually the captain, played by Eddie Albert, needn't have been depicted as a wing nut in order to be incompetent. He might just have exemplified the Peter Principle, which, for those who don't know it, states that a person who shows competence in his job is consistently promoted until he reaches a level in the hierarchy that is beyond his skills -- and there he stays. Albert's superior officer, Lee Marvin, explains this to one of Albert's lieutenants. Make Captain Albert less of a disaster by kicking him upstairs to a desk job? Absolutely not. He could never handle it and it would reflect badly on Marvin. So Albert must remain in command of a combat company, getting good men killed right and left.
The budget was very low, the shooting lasted little over a month, and the Army would simply not cooperate for obvious reasons. It shows. The German tanks, described as "really BIG ones", are about the size of a Ford Navigator. They shot it on the back lot in California, which doesn't begin to resemble the Ardennes forest. The property department couldn't even scrape up a facsimile of a German machine gun and seems to have used a British model. Much of the money spent on the film must have gone into the talent because Eddie Albert, Jack Palance, and Lee Marvin are good, as usual. (Oddly, all three had distinguished military records in the Navy, the Air Force, and the Marine Corps, respectively.) It's not a very good movie. There are times when Albert and Palance overact, almost to the point of pain. Of course there's only so much you can do with a role if it's written poorly. (This started as a stage play.) Palance's death scene is drawn out unconscionably and Palance can hardly be said to underplay it. Whatever shock value it had has long gone. The brutality now seems modest. There's a deep flaw in Albert's role too. The consequences of his behavior don't seem disastrous enough, although his character is clearly revolting.
As if the schematic diagram weren't already obvious enough, the score underlines it. On those occasions when Albert cracks up and cuddles his rabbit-fur slippers or crawls into his bunk and pulls the covers over his head, we hear "London Bridge is Falling Down" on the xylophone.
Yet it was a true shocker in its time. I saw it on its release in the El Camino theater in San Bruno, California. Strange that things get stuck in your mind for so long. I even recall the person I saw it with. On the other hand, it was disappointing, seeing this again just now, to find that over the same period my command of German had deteriorated into a kind of benign influence over it. It would be so much more constructive if we could choose which long-term memories to keep and which to discard. Oh -- and a lot more FUN.