MEN IN WAR

Film noir. Westerns. Biopics. War movies. Historical epics. Mid century American filmmaker Anthony Mann was a master of all of these genres and more. Even when not delivering tough and uncompromising genre fare, Mann consistently delivered compelling, interesting and highly watchable films. 

Mann's 1957 grim and gritty war film MEN IN WAR, takes place during the Korean War. September, 1950, to be exact. Robert Ryan stars as Lt. Benson, an officer in charge of a group of 17 enlisted men who are cut off from main American forces and find themselves trapped behind enemy lines. Benson doesn't care about winning the war, he just wants to save as many of his men as possible, even if it's just one soldier. To accomplish that goal, he drives his men to a hill held by North Korean forces, a hill upon which many men will die. 

Along the way Benson and his men encounter cynical, kill-or-be-killed Sgt. Montana (Aldo Ray), driving a jeep transporting a shell shocked Colonel (Robert Keith). Montana has an unswerving devotion to his devastated former commander and he refuses to leave the broken man behind. Benson commandeers the jeep to transport his squad's gear and commands Montana to join his group and do as he says. 

Montana will have none of that. He constantly disobeys orders, killing enemy would-be prisoners and doing whatever it takes to survive. Benson struggles to maintain some semblance of order and command but soon comes to realize that if the war is going to be won, it will be because of men like Montana. 

Benson's squad is composed of a shell shocked infantry man (Vic Morrow, who would go on to star in the long running COMBAT! series on ABC-TV), Nehemiah Persoff as Sgt. Lewis, Philip Pine as Sgt. Riordan, U.T. ex (and one of my all time favorite actors) L.Q. Jones as Sgt. Davis and Victor Sen Yung (Hop Sing on BONANZA) as a captured North Korean prisoner of war.

Benson and his men make a valiant effort to capture the hill in a well staged combat sequence that climaxes the film. Shot in Bronson Canyon, Mann and cinematographer Ernest Haller, get the most out of the location through well placed camera angles that give the relatively small location (I know, I visited the place in January, 1994 with my buddy Kelly Greene), the feeling of a much larger landscape. 

With a terrific score by Elmer Bernstein and a tough, unflinching screenplay by Philip Yordan, MEN IN WAR eschews flag waving and refuses to paint the desperate soldiers in a glorified position. They are simply men trying to survive a war they want nothing to do with. 

MEN IN  WAR is a bold and daring war film by an American filmmaker at the top of his game, a director who refused to follow the accepted formulae for genre films. Mann was constantly challenging the boundaries of genre, pushing the forms into new and unexpected directions. MEN IN WAR is like an unpinned hand grenade coming right at you. You'll be tempted to duck but keep your head up and your eyes on the screen and prepare to be dazzled. 

Highly recommended.