It operates within the strictures imposed on a television movie -- not many expensive special effects, no bankable stars, and an overall pallid washed-out quality in the photography. And it doesn't entirely avoid the familiar. One man must read aloud from a bloody bible while the listener dies a Hollywood death. And there is one of those conversations about "why we are here." Occasionally, too, it succumbs to the wobbling camera disease that infected so many productions of the time. There is a weak scene in which a German officer interrogates an American captive. The captive smirks throughout and answers sarcastically. It's not believable. But only ONE slow motion death, and thank heavens for small favors.
As Major Charles Whittlesey, commanding a battalion that penetrates the Argonne Forest only to find itself cut off from it own lines, taking massive casualties, running out of essential supplies, Ricky Schroeder has lost his boyish appeal and now, with a pair of spectacles, resembles a real man, something on the order of Jon Voight, only with a less resonant voice. I worked on two TV movies with Schroeder and he's a genuinely nice guy, willing to sit down and chat with humble extras. He should have gone on to decent character roles.
But the most striking feature of the film is its outright candor. True, the American troops are portrayed as brave heroes -- but that's what they WERE. Their triumphs were probably helped by the fact that the war would end shortly and many of the German troops had lost their enthusiasm for battle. But when friendly artillery fire rains down on Whittlesey's men -- as it did -- the error is made explicit on screen.
And due attention is paid to period detail. No reason to get into it but the rifles are Springfield '03s and some property man actually managed to dig up a disastrous French machine gun called the Chauchat. The pistols used by the Yanks are mostly correct but I doubt anybody ever hit much with them. The Luxembourg locations are properly convincing.
Whittlesbey's 77th Division is also historically correct, and so is its character, since most of its men were recruited from the streets of New York. (In the next war the 77th fought in the Pacific and wound up on Okinawa.) Some fun is made of ethnicity and region but it's incorporated into the usual Army banter without which no movie would be complete. A Manhattan Jew trades barbs with an Italian from Brooklyn over which borough has the best food. The names of the principals are real too. It would have been easy to fictionalize much of this and turn it into a talky and mindless feature with flashbacks to the family and girls back home, but the producers decided to handle the story differently. Good for them.
As Major Charles Whittlesey, commanding a battalion that penetrates the Argonne Forest only to find itself cut off from it own lines, taking massive casualties, running out of essential supplies, Ricky Schroeder has lost his boyish appeal and now, with a pair of spectacles, resembles a real man, something on the order of Jon Voight, only with a less resonant voice. I worked on two TV movies with Schroeder and he's a genuinely nice guy, willing to sit down and chat with humble extras. He should have gone on to decent character roles.
But the most striking feature of the film is its outright candor. True, the American troops are portrayed as brave heroes -- but that's what they WERE. Their triumphs were probably helped by the fact that the war would end shortly and many of the German troops had lost their enthusiasm for battle. But when friendly artillery fire rains down on Whittlesey's men -- as it did -- the error is made explicit on screen.
And due attention is paid to period detail. No reason to get into it but the rifles are Springfield '03s and some property man actually managed to dig up a disastrous French machine gun called the Chauchat. The pistols used by the Yanks are mostly correct but I doubt anybody ever hit much with them. The Luxembourg locations are properly convincing.
Whittlesbey's 77th Division is also historically correct, and so is its character, since most of its men were recruited from the streets of New York. (In the next war the 77th fought in the Pacific and wound up on Okinawa.) Some fun is made of ethnicity and region but it's incorporated into the usual Army banter without which no movie would be complete. A Manhattan Jew trades barbs with an Italian from Brooklyn over which borough has the best food. The names of the principals are real too. It would have been easy to fictionalize much of this and turn it into a talky and mindless feature with flashbacks to the family and girls back home, but the producers decided to handle the story differently. Good for them.