Motion Picture Daily (Jan-Mar 1951)

FROM THE MOTION PICTURE HERALD JAN. 6, 1951 The Steel Helmet Lippert — The Korean War Upper* Productions and writer-producer-director Samuel Fuller herewith make a liar out of the trade tradition that great war pictures reach the screen only long after the war is over. This is a great war picture going out to the public while the conflict it deals with still rages. It splendidly conveys to that public the nature of that conflict, in detail and in sum, fully and without frenzy. It is more dynamic than a documentary, more authentic than 99 per cent of the fiction films founded on fact, and it is more, rather than less, powerfully effective because its cast contains no overwhelming stars to obstruct or distort the script or tip off its ending. The picture is a cinch to build attendance as it plays, and to build very big indeed. Fuller, who learned his fighting lessons the hardest way, set out here to depict the Korean fighting explicitly, authoritatively and without exaggeration in either direction. His information is official, his research is thorough, and he took his production to Washington for inspection by the War Department, which okayed it with enthusiasm as a veracious representation of its subject. Yet his picture bears no high-flown forewords or footnotes, and makes _ no bid for consideration as other than what it is, a strictly professional production for commercial exhibition. He brings his players on without pretentious prelude, they establish their identities and characters by deed and word, and as the camera closes on the survivors the legend, "There Is No End to This Story" appears where "The End" appears on other films. (It is in key with this thought, and incidentally a distinct^ advantage with respect to the enduring timeliness of the attraction, that no calendar dates and no specific cities, but only the terms Korea and Manchuria, are stipulated.) The film opens on a closeup of the steel helmet from which it derives its title. The helmet, with a hole in it, is worn by a sergeant, his hands tied behind him, who has been left for dead by Reds who have machine-gunned him and his company. He. is untied by a Korean lad who follows along when the sergeant sets off through the mists in search of his army. A World War II veteran, the sergeant meets first a lone medic and then a platoon floundering in its search for a pagan temple sought for use as an observation post. Outshooting enemy snipers, he leads the platoon to the temple and takes it over, setting up radio communication with the main body of troops, but a North Korean major secreted in the temple murders one of his comrades and, when captured, turns out to have signalled the platoon's presence to the enemy, which advances on the position in strength. The sergeant violates military code by shooting down the prisoner of war after a sniper has PRODUCT DIGEST SECTION, JANUARY 6, 1951 slain the Korean boy, and the platoon commander tells him he will turn him in for this offense if it takes him 20 years to do so. But the enemy charges the. temple and all but four of the company, including the officer, are killed before the artillery comes up and rescues the four. The story ends with the sergeant placing his helmet on the grave of the dead officer, who previously has asked him to exchange headgear as a mark of mutual respect, and trudges off, presumptively to report himself guilty of the illegal killing. It is not a story to be read in synopsis. It is a screen story in the total sense of that term, far richer in performance than it can be in narration. The picture is, in the fullest and best meaning of the phrase, a motion picture. Gene Evans, until now a minor bit player, gives a performance as the sergeant that brings up old memories of the late Louis Wolheim. His sergeant is seasoned, earnest, earthy and practical, but most of all just plain real. Neither the sergeant nor any of the others mouth heroic or vainglorious declarations, and neither do they grouse. They portray fighting men as fighting men are, doing their job as best they can. All rate praise for their handling of their roles. There are no women in the cast. William Berke assisted Fuller as associate producer, and Ernest W. Miller contributed some of the best photography witnessed on the screen in a long time. Previewed in Encino, Calif., to a trade press group which didn't disturb the projection room quiet by so much as a word of comment or the lighting of a cigaret during the screening. Receiver's Rating: Excellent. — William R. Weaver. Release date, February 2, 1951. Running time, 84 minutes. PCA No. 14901. General audience classification. Sergeant Zach Gene Evans Private Browne Robert Hutton Steve Brodie, James Edwards, Richard Loo, Sid Melton, Richard Monahan, William Chum, Harold Fong, Neyle Morrow, Lynn Stallmaster. THEY'RE CRABBING IT ! MEW YORK LOEW S STATE CHICAGO B & K's ROOSEVELT SAN FRANCISCO FWC's FOX TEXAS INTERSTATE NEW ORLEANS PARAMOUNT YOUR BOX OFFICE TOPPER FROM LIPPERT