Samuel Fuller / USA / 1951 / 92 min
Available on DVD/Blu-ray dual-format
Palitoy, the makers of the doll-for-boys, Action Man, was surprised when their big Christmas seller in the late 1960s was a white army ski outfit with fur-trimmed hood. The inspiration was surely the 1968 movie Where Eagles Dare which saw audacious World War II heroes in white ski suits storm a Nazi stronghold. You might imagine Eagles was a pioneer – filming in the snow (whether on location or in the studio) can’t be easy. But first came Fixed Bayonets!, set during the Korean War. It was directed by the unfairly maligned B-movie meister Samuel Fuller.
The unforgiving 4k Blu-Ray resolution in this new Masters of Cinema release gives the viewer constant reminders of the limitations of Twentieth-Century Fox’s elaborate studio-bound set with its snowy outcrops and fir trees. The black-and-white photography helps add much-needed realism. In the Americans’ battle with “the reds”, morale is high but ammo’s low. To outfox the wily enemy, 48 of the toughest grunts (all stogies and stubble) become a platoon disguised as a regiment, going on to fight a rearguard action allowing the main body to retreat unmolested. The film – despite the exclamation mark – doesn’t have quite the same brio as Fuller’s other movies (Forty Guns was reviewed here a few months ago) but his trademark travelling camera is fully employed. Oddly, amid the banter and male bonding under fire there is a thoughtful study with hints about what is now called PTSD and of personality clashes (it’s the old trope: the men come from diverse backgrounds – Irish, Polish, Italian, Cherokee) yet, faced with the same enemy, all have to try to rub along with each other. There are discussions about why guys join the army and why they decide to stay and make a career of it.
There are physical deprivations too, from frostbite to trench foot, but oddly there is little sense from the actors of experiencing real cold, even when one of them falls in a pool of freezing water. There is certainly none of the unremitting harshness of the recent The Revenant. The intense, wordy exchanges between the soldiers make the outbursts of gunfire action and nailbiting traversing of a minefield to save the injured sarge all the more powerful. A subplot examines one of the soldiers (Richard Basehart) who can take an order but not give one and put other men’s lives at risk. Even with the setup of honourable Yanks versus heartless Commies this is not a jingoistic story, but more an easygoing psychological examination on the meaning of heroism. Refreshingly, the viewer is not manipulated by getting to know, like and sympathise with the characters before they get knocked off one by one. The film is another reminder of how, back in the day, being a man was a lot less complicated than it is today.