If you're going to watch only one movie about the Battle Bastogne
This 1948 film has a good pedigree. It was written by Robert Pirosh, who wrote HELL IS FOR HEROES and many of the best episodes of COMBAT!, and directed by William Wellman, a fine hardboiled action director. Pirosh's script, in fact, won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. It also has an excellent cast going for it. Van Johnson and John Hodiak are the leads, but it's really an ensemble picture with James Whitmore, Ricardo Montalban, George Murphy, Douglas Fowley, and others turning in fine performances as GIs. A very young James Arness is even in a couple of scenes.
The story follows a fictional platoon in the 101st, but other than that it strikes me as very accurate historically, including German soldiers masquerading as Americans, General McAuliffe's famous reply to the German demand for a surrender, and at least a mention of the Malmedy Massacre. Not only that, but the film looks right, with most of it set in a snow-covered forest rather than the dusty plains of last week's BATTLE OF THE BULGE. And even though I knew the outcome, of course, I still got caught up in what was going on, and the ending is very effective.
The mini-series BAND OF BROTHERS also covered this story and did a fine job of it, and it's probably slightly better. But not by much, and that doesn't mean if you've seen that version, you shouldn't watch BATTLEGROUND. I think it's a splendid movie and without a doubt one of the best war films I've seen.
7 comments:
I have probably seen every Vietnam movies but surprisingly few of these WW 2 movies. Not sure why.
I agree this is one of the best, a film I've seen many times over the years. But watch out, there is a colorized version lurking around.
Agreed, which is surprising, considering how close on the heels on the War this movie was.
I agree - this is THE Battle of the Bulge movie to watch and one of the best war movies of any I've seen. Gritty and wonderfully acted throughout. But the closing scene --- with the battle-scarred veterans marching out as fresh troops are marching in --- and James Whitmore barely able to walk on frozen, frost-bitten feet yet still growling for his men to straighten up and march proud to his cadence call ... puts a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye every time.
And, unsurprisingly, an episode of THE BIG PICTURE (the early WW2 tv documentary series from the Army's PR unit) has an episode by the same title dealing with some of the same events...
I remember watching THE BIG PICTURE on Sunday afternoons. My dad always watched it and Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour.
One of the best WWII movies ever, IMHO. When I was at Fort Campbell, I was one of a few hundred non-airborne soldiers surrounded by thousands of 101st Airborne troops. They acted like their feces were aroma free and called us "legs." We'd insult them as they marched around yelling, "Engineers never walk." Our on base watering hole was Club Bastogne. We liked to remind them that at the Battle of the Bulge it was the guys from the Third Army who saved their asses, not the parachute boys (called birdshit.)
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