During World War I marines and mortal enemies Captain Flagg and Sergeant Quirt fight their own personal war for the local village prostitute Charmaine. Since this is a war film from the 1950's you have to read between the lines to figure out that the girl is a prostitute.
The chief impression left by What Price Glory is of a lot of people yelling at each other for the running time of the film. James Cagney yells at Dan Dailey, Dailey yells back at Cagney, Cagney yells at the other officers, Dailey yells at the enlisted men and on and on.
Being a veteran of World War II, Ford seems to think that lots of soldiers yelling and shouting is funny. He throws in a lot of little visual jokes and humor which seems more heavy handed than usual. There was always of part of Ford that liked to use cornball humor in his films and sometimes this approach worked to lighten up the heavy drama of films like The Searchers or How Green Was My Valley. But in this film he really runs amok with the lowbrow jokes which completely destroy the story.
The was shot completely on the back lot of 20th Century Fox, the sets look phony and the fighting in the trenches during the battle scenes is completely unbelievable. It's hard to believe this is the same director who filmed Four Sons, a much better World War I drama 24 years earlier. What Price Glory, was a stage play when it was first performed in 1924, that might have been part of the problem with this film. The whole thing just seems very stiff, perhaps Ford felt he needed to have the cast constantly yell at each other to distract the audience from it's theatrical origins.
111 minutes, written by Phoebe Ephron and Henry Ephron.
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