MovieChat Forums > Men in War (1957) Discussion > Terrific existential war movie

Terrific existential war movie


Watched this for the first time this evening and was very impressed by it. It was very spare, self-contained and tense; in fact it reminded me very much of Ernest Hemingway's writing.

I say existential because the characters are presented with no back story, no information about their personal lives - they simply are, and progress through the film experiencing occasional incident until the film ends. Many of the soldiers we learn nothing of, save their names. They encounter no-one else on their journey apart from the barely-seen enemy.

There is no attempt to cast a moral light on what happens or draw conclusions from it. It is simply presented for us to view. Neither is there any philosophising and there is an almost total lack of sentimentality, both of which mar many war films.

A terrific cast too: Robert Ryan is one of my favourite actors and he's typically brilliant in this. His lines are mostly standard military jargon but he communicates so much more with his intonation and facial expressions. Somebody on another thread has said that he was too old to play a Lieutenant, which he may well have been, but I'm not sure many other American actors of that period could have done the job quite as well.

Aldo Ray is pretty good too and it's always good to watch an L.Q. Jones character part.

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Thanks for the review; very helpful.

AL

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Yes, good point.
A terrific end will be an word coming from HQ informimg that the Hill was disregard as valuable.

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