What Price Glory (1952)

User Rating:

6.4/10   

Director:

John Ford

Writers:

Phoebe Ephron (screenplay) and
Henry Ephron (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

August 1952 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Musical | Romance | War

Plot:

In 1918 France, Captain Flagg commands a disreputable company of Marines; his new top sergeant is his old friendly enemy...

Plot Keywords:

Marines | 1910s | Poker | Duty | Trench Warfare

Cast

James Cagney	...	Capt. Flagg
Corinne Calvet	...	Charmaine
Dan Dailey	...	1st Sgt. Quirt
William Demarest	...	Cpl. Kiper
Craig Hill	...	Lt. Aldrich
Robert Wagner	...	Pvt. Lewisohn
Marisa Pavan	...	Nicole Bouchard
Max Showalter	...	Lt. Moore (as Casey Adams)
James Gleason	...	Gen. Cokely
Wally Vernon	...	Lipinsky
Henri Letondal	...	Cognac Pete

Runtime:

111 min

Country:

USA

Language:

French | English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

UK:A (original rating) | UK:U (re-rating) (1991) | USA:Approved (certificate #15706) | Canada:PG (video rating) | Finland:K-16 | Spain:T | Sweden:15

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

The melody "Charmaine" (Rapee/Pollock), specially written for the 1928 version of the film, was incorporated into the soundtrack music following a best-selling version record by Mantovani making the charts in 1951.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Flagg and Quirt crawl through the lines in search of prisoners, Flagg picks up a German helmet and places it on his head. In the next sequence he is bare headed but he wears it in the farm house.

Quotes:

Captain Flagg: Quirt loves the bottle, and when he's drunk he is the lousiest, filthiest tramp that ever wore a uniform. He's even worse than I am, and you know I don't allow anybody to get as bad as that.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Becoming Attractions: The Trailers of Humphrey Bogart (1997) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Smiles

Lesser John Ford is still quite good

Ford might be best known for his Westerns, but he made nearly as many military pictures as he made Westerns (perhaps more if we were to count his cavalry pictures in the military genre). What Price Glory is a WWI picture starring James Cagney as a commanding officer. He's involved with the daughter of an innkeeper, Charmaine (Corinne Calvet), but he doesn't think he should marry her. He pushes off one of his underlings (Dan Dailey) on her, but later regrets it. There's also a nice romantic subplot involving a young Robert Wagner and a French teenager, Marisa Pavan. A lot of it works very well. I love Calvet. She's best known for her role in Anthony Mann's The Far Country, where she played the pig-tailed girl with the stocking cap who was always trying to sing for Jimmy Stewart. Oh, I know she's not a great actress, but she's so damn cute and charming. I love her character here, nice but opportunistic. The sets and cinematography are very good. The one aspect that really harms it is Dan Dailey. He gives a very weak performance and is very unsympathetic. 7/10.