Battle Cry (1955)

Director: Raoul Walsh

Writer: Leon Uris

Composer: Max Steiner

Starring: Van Heflin, Aldo Ray, Mona Freeman, Nancy Olson, James Whitmore, Raymond Massey, Tab Hunter, Dorothy Malone, Anne Francis, William Campbell, John Lupton, L.Q. Jones, Perry Lopez, Fess Parker

More info: IMDb

Tagline: THE SCORCHINGLY PERSONAL BEST-SELLER!

Plot: In World War II, a group of raw recruits join the U.S. Marines. They come from all walks of life and go through boot camp together. After basic training, and are sent to Camp Elliott and the 2nd Battalion of the 6th Marines commanded by Major Sam Huxley. His job is now to make them into an effective fighting unit. They leave family and girlfriends behind but soon meet new people, fall in love and fall out of love. In November 1942, they shipped out arriving first in New Zealand for advanced training and from there on to Guadalcanal. Tarawa is their next mission but Huxley has to pull strings to get his battalion into front line action. He gets his wish with the invasion of Saipan.

My rating: 5.5/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

If you signed up to see this movie...

you'll feel cheated because THIS is what you'll get...

Yeah.  OMFG.  The melodrama is thick and there's very little war action.  I'm not sayin' you can't have pictures like this, there's room for them, but for fuck's sake...don't advertise it with so much war action 'cause there's hardly any.  Yeah, the last 20 minutes deliver on that but that's a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the picture that runs about two and a half hours.  My only issue with the film is the story filled with love won, lost and so on.  The hardships of the soldiers is touched on from time to time as if they're/we're going to get us a war picture but it's only a tease.  I don't want to be told something happened.  Show me, damnit.  There's maybe 15 minutes of actual war action and that's being generous.  It's probably a little less.  Anyway, this was a real disappointment whether it was my own misguided expectations or this picture really is a drab affair.  They should've called it SOLDIERS CRY or at least something that doesn't elicit, uh, you know, war action.  At least there was this one moment of unexpected satisfaction...