An interesting WWII movie, partly about Ernie Pyle, the famous war correspondent, but even more so about the American ‘grunt.’
Robert Mitchum is great, as Lt. and later Capt. Bill Walker, and Burgess Meredith (aka Penguin, from the Adam West Batman!) is terrific as Pyle.
Shot in black and white, and incorporating some real war footage, where appropriate, this is propaganda. But it’s of a much humbler and grittier type than your normal patriotic chest-thumpers.
I really enjoyed this film. It’s intriguingly different from – as well as also sharing many aspects with – many other more genre type war movies.
For example, we hardly see the actual enemy. Modern war movies often make a point, sometimes rather laboured, of showing both sides. This film is resolutely all about the G.I.
It also focuses on the North African and Italian campaigns; the defeat at Kasserine Pass, and the protracted muddy, bloody siege of Monte Cassino. Again not areas addressed by too many other US WWII films.
They use Pyle’s wartime correspondence as a ‘script’, both as narration, and for the substance of some of the dialogue. Again this makes the movie quite different from normal wartime film output.
I thoroughly enjoyed this film. When I’m a bit more flush, I might add it to my WWII DVD collection? Definitely worth watching.