Modern Screen (Jul-Dec 1945)

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As the Army prepares to cross the desert, the guy in the tin hat is ordered to get rid of his woolly pooch. There is a moment of silent conflict between hundreds of G.I. boys who want that dog along, and a commanding officer, Lieutenant Walker. Pooch wins and this Iliad of immense warfare is off to a sentimental start. So is a convoy which includes Ernie Pyle, late and beloved American war correspondent, who, although well past the age limit, attaches himself to the unit, as all America knows by now, and treks along. Burgess Meredith plays the difficult role of Ernie for all he is worth, and he is worth a great deal. At best, such a characterization is a thankless task, because no one man can be expected to live up to America's composite version of this dearly beloved war correspondent. Meredith plays him lovingly, but the characterization seems "white." Meredith plays him tenderly, but the characterization seems a little too old and too tired. But he does manage to achieve sensitivity. Both in real life, and in this rather halting and ambling picture, Ernie Pyle typifies what we have learned to admire most in our American fighting men; their innate and deeply rooted decencies, plus those everyday virtues which overshadow their everyday vices. The story is about the rough and terrible going of a group of veterans of the campaigns of Africa, Sicily and Italy. There is a G.I. infantryman who yearns to be in the Air Forces (Jack Reilly). There is the gallant and comprehending Lieutenant Walker, just one more example of a man who under pressure acquires genius for leadership (Robert Mitchum). Lopez, (the very names of these men are significant) murmurs his pathetic homesickness for his wife in Arizona and wonders what he can bring back to the kid on his return. "That is, if you do return," another G.I. retorts with the cynicism of men who live in the shadow of death. Then there is Ernie . . . always Ernie . . . Dawns come. Dawns go. Motor trucks, jeeps and armored cars fill the air with their din. Through it, like a minstrel, wanders Ernie, nonchalant, humorous, gentle, his eyes packed with appreciation of these fighting fellows who find it so difficult to hate. The rains come, the mud thickens, the artillery fire comes closer and closer. The first man in the company is shot down. Unaccustomed to death (except in the ordered way of the coffin in the family parlor, the slow hearse, the hillside graveyard), American boys leave a comrade in khaki lying face downward in strange dust, thousands of miles from home. Tramp. Tramp. Tramp. The rains come down in solid deluge, the mud twists around the plodding feet. It is defeat now, for the Americans are obliged to retreat down a mountain path. Bodies hurtle from towers. Italian palazzios, older than America, totter to bombarded destruction. No, there is nothing new in these battle scenes, but to Ernie Pyle, every individual boy's dilemma is terribly separate, ter ribly vital, never old, always new. The obscenity of war constantly appals him. He remarks: "The GJ. lives miserably and dies miserably." There is no glory in war, no glamor for Ernie. He knows that these G. I. fellows love life, and too often pretend they do not dread death in battle. The bombardment of San Vittorio begins. Tanks, men, shells, form chaos. Streets are flaming rubble. Bullets whizz. Ernie always in the thick of it. One G. I., Dondaro (finely played by Wally Cassell), stumbles into a momentary dazzle of romantic adventure when he bursts into a ruined cafe and finds a lovely Italian girl crouching there. But war splits his moment of passion and he is snatched back into hell's fire. The devout Lopez stops to worship at a ruined altar. Up in the belfry of the shattered church, a sniper grabs at the bell rope as he falls to his death, and the bell begins to ring over Lopez and the demolished scene. Obvious dramatics? Perhaps. So is war. Sergeant Warnicki receives a package from home. A phonograph record of his baby's voice. He finds a disabled gramophone in a ruined building and upon every possible occasion, in dugouts, in fox holes, plays it. "Hello Daddy — Hello Daddy— Hello Daddy." Private Murphy marries a Red Cross nurse under German shell fire. Ernie Pyle gives the bride away. They are halted by fire from a monastery atop a hill, which the enemy is using as an observation post. The monastery is not named, but the audience knows that the wedding is taking place in the historic shadow of Mt. Cassino. In the midst of this vast razing of the monastery, Pyle receives news from America that his war coverage has won him the Pulitzer prize. But scenes of life and death, of comrades falling, bleeding, dying, of men sobbing in death's delirium, dwarf his Pulitzer Prize achievement to the commonplace. Ernie crams the message into his pocket and continues pounding away at a typewriter to the overhead pounding of guns. Warnicki, who carries his baby's voice around with him on a record, suddenly cracks under the pressure, and goes mad. The battle rises in wrath. Long files of dead bodies are brought in on stretchers. And then comes the corpse of Lieutenant Walker. Ernie Pyle's own written description of the death of this leader, will stand as one of his most moving narratives. The screen attempts to live up to Pyle's little classic It almost succeeds. Anguish and immense tragedy rise in Pyle as he sees the men pay the tribute of farewell to Lieutenant Walker, who had given them something more than leadership, as he spurred them on to face hell fire. This final scene of mute understanding between men of austere dedication, of exultation and humility of spirit, is done with dignity and restraint. Lt. Walker is gone and so are countless comrades. The march to Rome must continue. We see the last of Ernie as he trudges alongside of these men for whom he is interpreter — these common, ordinary, everyday men, who can only feel in their bones what Ernie articulates for them in words. He knows them. He loves them. He speaks for them. They, in turn, know and love him — they speak for him, now that he is gone. Haltingly, but with a kind of bated breath. This is the straggling story of Ernie Pyle's "Story of G.I. Joe." It lacks form, but somehow it has texture. The texture of the American soldier and of Ernie Pyle.