Movies : War : DVD Rip : English
January 6, 1951
THE SCREEN IN REVIEW; 'Halls of Montezuma,' Realistic Depiction of Goriness of War, Presented at Roxy Theatre
By BOSLEY CROWTHER
Published: January 6, 1951
A remarkably real and agonizing demonstration of the horribleness of war, with particular reference to its impact upon the men who have to fight it on the ground, has been achieved by Director Lewis Milestone and Twentieth Century-Fox in "Halls of Montezuma," which came to the Roxy yesterday.
Pulling no punches in recording the dirty and gory details of beach-crashing, foot-slogging warfare and what it does to the minds and emotions of men, this Techni-colored drama about a strike by United States Marines against an island in the Pacific is one of the best of the latter-day war films.
And when we say that, we are commending not only the technical skill and the unrelenting candor of those who did the job, but also the courage of their convictions in bringing it to the screen at this time. For the sort of fighting and dying that is boldly represented here is very much the sort that American soldiers and marines have been suffering recently in the miserable uplands of Korea. It is the sort that they may have to continue to suffer for years. And it isn't very hopeful or inspiring, no matter how heroic the men appear.
Indeed, under-running the whole picture is an emotional current of despair and a barely controlled sense of outrage that agony such as this should be. The men do their perilous jobs with courage. They maintain rigid discipline. There is no cowardice or shirking, when the critical chips are down. And this is the picture's recognition of "the eternal glory of the United States Marines." This is the demonstration in which the audience can take some comfort and great pride. But the passionate theme of the whole drama is cried out in a dead man's words toward the end: "War is too horrible for human beings!" This film makes it eminently clear.
From an original screen play by Michael Blankfort, Mr. Milestone has graphically described just one phase of an assault in the Pacific, covering a period of perhaps seventy-two hours. He takes a company of marines led by a grim young lieutenant ashore in a beach-head attack on a Jap-held island which might be Okinawa, to judge by the terrain. And there he reveals the desperate peril of the whole assault against an unexpected rocket defense and the torturing experiences of a detail sent forward under the command of the lieutenant to capture some informative Japs.
In many respects, this compact drama is reminiscent of "A Walk in the Sun," the harrowing history of a patrol at Salerno, which Mr. Milestone directed six years ago. But in this film, the span is a little broader, the violence is more vivid and intense and the comprehensions of human tension are somewhat more abstruse and involved. Psychoses of fear and hate are mingled dramatically among the men, and their distaste for taking prisoners becomes a motivating factor in the plot. Indeed, the concentration of the writer and the director toward the end upon a drama of interrogation, to build suspense, is the one weakness of the film. Here it takes on the appearance, for a short while, of a studio-made film.
Otherwise, the production is tremendous. With the assistance of the United States Marines and the facilities of their great base at Fort Pendleton, Mr. Milestone has re-enacted battle scenes that look for all the world as though they might have been lifted from the classic wartime documentary films. And the company of Hollywood actors has done as honest a job of playing "gyreens" in action as any veteran leatherneck could wish.
Richard Widmark is tense and electric as the lieutenant who "fights the war with his head in a vise," meaning that he is silently suffering from a psychosis which compels that he keep going with the aid of drugs. Karl Maiden is wonderfully gentle as the corpsman who keeps him supplied and Richard Hylton is sure as a corporal whom the lieutenant once taught as a pupil in school. Walter Palance, Skip Homeier, Robert Wagner, Neville Brand and Bert Freed are superb as assorted fighters; Reginald Gardiner plays a British interpreter well and Richard Boone is remarkably credible as a nerve-wracked colonel in command.
Featured on the Roxy stage are Al Bernie, Dick and Dot Remy, Hollace Shaw, Robert Maxwell and the Spitalny choral ensemble.
THE HALLS OF MONTEZUMA, screen play by Michael Blankfort; directed by Lewis Milestone; produced by Robert Bassler for Twentieth Century-Fox. At the Roxy.
Lieutenant Anderson . . . . . Richard Widmark
Pigeon Lane . . . . . Walter (Jack) Palance
Sergeant Johnson . . . . . Reginald Gardiner
Coffman . . . . . Robert Wagner
Doc . . . . . Karl Malden
Corporal Conroy . . . . . Richard Hylton
Lieutenant Colonel Gilfillan . . . . . Richard Boone
Pretty Boy . . . . . Skip Homeier
Lieutenant Butterfield . . . . . Don Hicks
Correspondent Dickerman . . . . . Jack Webb
Slattery . . . . . Bert Freed
Sergeant Zelenko . . . . . Neville Brand
Private Whitney . . . . . Martin Milner
Nomura . . . . . Philip Ahn
Captain Makino . . . . . Howard Chuman
Romeo . . . . . Frank Kumagai
A Walk In The Sun,mentioned above was uploaded the 13th March 2010.
Neville Brand was the 4th most decorated soldier in the 2nd WW
