50 Great War Films: The Big Red One

 

Directed by Samuel Fuller - 1980 poster

I am not certain how to 'rate' this film. It is certainly at the lower end of the thirty-two Great War Films I have watched so far. Perhaps, it is unlucky coming straight after a viewing of Apocalypse Now. After a night's sleep on it, I realise one has to approach the movie as Fuller described it: essentially it is a Diary of a group of men, charting their story across several theatres of war - North Africa in November 1942; Sicily in July 1943; the Omaha D-Day beach in June 1944; Belgium in September 1944; Germany in October 1944; and the horrors of a concentration camp gas chambers in Czechoslovakia in May 1945. Clearly shot on a comparatively low budget, the scenes are focused on the four men, under Lee Marvin as the Sergeant. There are solid performances from Mark Hamill (Private Griff), Robert Carradine (Private Zab), Bobby Di Cicco (Private Vinci) and Kelly Ward (Private Johnson). Apparently, John Wayne was lined up to play the Sergeant - that would have transformed (ruined?) the group ethic, as he would have been too 'big' a character and the audience focus would have had him in the spotlight too much. 

The famous Five

I found the beginning, with its dead-strewn battlefield, grouped around a stark crucifixion cross, surreal. This was further emphasised by the frightened horse trampling Marvin etc. One of the few false 'notes' was when the Sergeant came across the same cross on his way across Europe 26 years later. The sheer unlikelihood cancelled out any poetic imagery.

The battlefield Cross

Moments that stand out from the film include: the tanks rolling over the squad hiding in self-made foxholes; the little Italian boy pulling a cart containing his dead mother, trying desperately to get her buried in a proper cemetery inside a decent coffin; the inmates of the asylum joining in the shooting; the attempts, eventually successful, to help a French woman give birth in a German tank;  the Nazi being shot dead whilst cowering in a holocaust oven; the Jewish boy saved at the same liberated camp by Marvin; the Sicilian farm-worker women viciously stabbing a dead German with their scythes. Memorable phrases included: The creepy thing about battle is you always feel alone; Surviving is the only glory in War; We don't murder, we kill; poussez not pussy! 

There were generally favourable reviews when the film came out in 1980. The story of the film's restoration twenty-odd years later is of interest in itself. Working with 70,000 feet of vault materials and Fuller's original shooting script, a group not only reconstructed the movie but added 47 minutes to bring it closer to Fuller's planned production before the Studio took it away from him. Good old film critic Roger Ebert, hit the nail on the head when he wrote: "A" war movies are about war, but "B" movies are about soldiers. That's exactly what The Big Red One was about.

2004 DVD