Henry Fonda walks through this disappointing film about a corporal who learns to be a man and "fight for what he wants" after his squad's sergeant (Thomas Mitchell) is killed and he has to take over the squad in the Libyan desert. The tensionless war scenes are broken up by dull flashbacks of Fonda's relationship with Maureen O'Hara, who he treats as kind of a gal pal because he's just too shy or unsure of himself to go for despite the fact she is obviously hungering for him (only because there's a British fop also after her. Maureen had to be hungering for John Wayne to show up as a Yank so she could blow off both of these losers).
The direction is pedestrian and the script would have been thrown away by Wayne or Stewart. I particularly enjoyed seeing the soldiers walk through the desert in the daytime in foul weather gear while its hot and they're dying of thirst. Yes, it gets cold in the desert at night. But this wasn't at night!
The direction is pedestrian and the script would have been thrown away by Wayne or Stewart. I particularly enjoyed seeing the soldiers walk through the desert in the daytime in foul weather gear while its hot and they're dying of thirst. Yes, it gets cold in the desert at night. But this wasn't at night!