Made up in gray hair and deep-throated chuckles, the young leads of Soldiers Three start the movie off in a bar reminiscing about their good old times in the Army. Cue a giant flashback. All of a sudden, Stewart Granger, Walter Pidgeon, and Cyril Cusack are young again, soldiers in British occupied India. They're far more interested in getting drunk and stirring up trouble with their pals David Niven and Robert Newton than being taken seriously as soldiers, so when Pidge gets promoted and has to, in turn, promote one of the others to take over, the fun's over. Since it's clearly Stewart Granger's movie (much to my disappointment, since I was only watching it for David Niven), it's no surprise that he gets the promotion.
I've seen many, many war movies in my time, and even though I liked three actors in the supporting cast, I really didn't like it. I always considered Stewart Granger's career superfluous, when David Niven could have made any of his movies. And it doesn't seem to make sense when the group of three rambunctious English soldiers pick a bar fight with a group of Scottish soldiers on the sole basis that their kilts look silly, when another man in their regiment is The Niv, a Scot himself! While I fully admit it's hard to make a war movie a comedy, this one doesn't hit the mark.
I've seen many, many war movies in my time, and even though I liked three actors in the supporting cast, I really didn't like it. I always considered Stewart Granger's career superfluous, when David Niven could have made any of his movies. And it doesn't seem to make sense when the group of three rambunctious English soldiers pick a bar fight with a group of Scottish soldiers on the sole basis that their kilts look silly, when another man in their regiment is The Niv, a Scot himself! While I fully admit it's hard to make a war movie a comedy, this one doesn't hit the mark.