1957 - MEN IN WAR-one of the better films about the Korean War

The Korean War isn't a fun war like World War II. It doesn't have the larger than life villains like Hitler and Mussolini. It lacks the fanatical onslaught of hoards of the "yellow peril" of Japanese fighters descending on Pearl Harbor. It wasn't fought in Europe where you got all of that picturesque local European flavor to shoot up, or in the South Pacific, where apparently the sailors had time to stand around and sing "Bali Hai." Hollywood had a hard time making films about the Korean War, nobody really understood what the hell we were doing there other than it had something to do with communism and communism was going to destroy our way of life in the 1950's. Consequently there are not a lot of cool war movies made about the Korean war. Men in War is one of the few decent movies I've seen along with Pork Chop Hill and The Steel Helmet which is almost the entire list of Korean War films made in Hollywood.

The film focuses exclusively on a platoon of soldiers who are trapped behind enemy lines during one day. The plot has to do with them making their way back to safe ground, but this story spins it in interesting ways. The director is Anthony Mann who preferred to shot on location and who felt it was more realistic in a film to have the actors actually run up real hills than studio sets. The leads are Robert Ryan and Aldo Rey, two good actors but not big names. Ryan plays the Lieutenant in charge of the platoon. At the start of the film he seems sure of himself and in charge, by the end of the film he's lost control of the situation and is hoping he can keep himself alive. Rey is a Sergeant who is probably a psychopath who just happened to luck out by joining the army so he can kill people legally. Towards the end of the film Ryan comes to the realization that this is probably the type of guy the army needs as soldiers.

The scenes where the Americans kill the Koreans and then go through their pockets looting them were very effective. All of the Korean soldiers have pictures of their families in their pockets. The slow decimation of the platoon is also well done. Anthony Mann was always good at placing his actors in impressive compositions when filming. Here he has an interesting visual scheme with his actors wandering in tall grass and fields.

 

 The film was made on a small budget, but it was very carefully put together, photographed and edited for strong visual impact. The film is also extremely well acted, another good Anthony Mann film.

102 minutes, written by Phillip Yordan.