Highly Overrated But Still Good

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The Marine Corps F4-U4 Corsairs filmed in this movie belonged to squadrons, VMF-217 and VMF-322. Based at the Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) El Toro, California. The two squadrons were unofficially dubbed "The Battle Cry Squadrons:" I was an enlisted Marine (PFC) assigned to VMF-217 as a mechanic.That was in 1954. A group of enlisted and officers from the squadrons were invited to Hollywood for a luncheon and to meet the movie's cast. It was a way of thanking the squadrons for their contribution to the film. I was lucky enough to be chosen to go with the group.Members of the cast included Van Heflin, Tab Hunter, Aldo Ray along with many others were there and all were most gracious. Everyone fell in love with Dorothy Malone, including me. Photos were taken but due to many moves over a 30 year Marine Corps career, those photo were lost to the ages. Semper Fi, Masta Guns

Leon Uris's novel, on which this is based, was pretty good as I recall, and I saw the film shortly after its release. Seeing the film now, much of it raises a smile. I never heard of "pogy bait" before or after I was in the military. And I never expected to see on film a guy -- who apparently was an extra -- giving someone the bent-elbow salute, which, in its diverse forms, meant exactly what it appears to mean.I like the novel. It had some original touches. When the Tab Hunter character takes a sip of the first cocktail he's ever had, he's surprised at how pleasant it tastes. Not at all like the foul breath of the men returning drunk from liberty.The acting is reasonably good, considering Tab Hunter. And the recently deceased Perry Lopez (the police lieutenant in "Chinatown") does a fine turn as a slimy huckster. Aldo Ray fits his part well, with his bulk and gravelly voice, contrasting neatly with Patricia Olsen's delicacy.The chief problem with the movie, at least from my point of view is that it's essentially a woman's picture told from the point of view of a handful of uber-virile men. I don't mean any disrespect. I loathe "Rambo" and the rest.But it's the story of the usual diverse group of young men going through Marine Corps boot camp and radio school. (I was a radioman too, and at least Aldo Ray got the code right when he dreamily taps out "Pat Rogers.") There's the bullock-like farmer, the tricky Mexican, the comic and complaining Texan, the naif, the sensitive novelist, the battle-hardened top sergeant who must "make Marines out of them." And there's Colonel Huxley, Van Heflin, who would never think of asking his men to do anything he wouldn't do himself. All of them are tough and gung ho.The climactic battle scenes on Saipan last about ten minutes. The remaining 139 minutes are mostly taken up with the romances of the men. They fall in love with women of varying types, stumble over obstacles, and sometimes they make it and sometimes they don't. All the romantic sub-plots are different in accidents but not essences. They are relieved only by two sexy scenes for the period: a glimpse of Mona Freeman's chaste white underpants and a hint of Dorothy Malone's gloriously tanned nudity. And Anne Francis is mighty pretty.Not to dismiss all romance from all movies about men at war, but in my judgment we don't need half a dozen such threads. One, or perhaps two, handled with prudence will serve to illustrate the point.As it stands, there's a lot of agony experienced at Camp Pendleton and in the boudoir and very little reason for that agony is shown on the screen. It's nine tenths suffering and one tenth justification for it.

A big budget, epic story about the personal lives of young men trained to fight in WWII, "Battle Cry" turned out better than I had expected. From boot camp to active duty in the Pacific, the plot accentuates the ups and downs of several marines, their love lives, their interpersonal relations and adaptation to the military, constantly lorded over by tough commanders.From the title one would think the plot stresses battle scenes. But it does not, except in the final twenty minutes or so. The film therefore probably disappoints a fair number of viewers who expect something they won't see until near the end. I do think the plot structure trends repetitive. And given the lengthy runtime, some of the melodramatic scenes could probably have been edited out.Still, the focus on character development is nice. It allows viewers to get to know the main characters. And so viewers have something invested in those characters when they do see combat. And not everyone survives. Consistent with 1950s storytelling, all of the characters are stereotypical.The widescreen CinemaScope projection is too severe and distracts from the visuals. Images look unnecessarily small especially in wide-angle shots. Production design is quite credible. Staging of battle scenes is realistic. Acting varies from average to above average.The story's theme focuses on the emotional toll that war takes on soldiers and their families, as everyone suffers from fear of an unknown future. Though the script is less than perfect, it's a good story. And with great production values, "Battle Cry" deserves to be seen at least once by serious viewers.

It's probably too late to address the legalities now but at the time there may well have been an infringement of the Trade Descriptions Act in a movie titled BATTLE Cry that runs two and a half hours and contains barely twenty minutes of actual combat but that's not the same as saying it's a bad movie, indeed, I scored it a 7 out of 10. Scenarist Leon Uris, who was adapting his own novel (there's a lovely story about Uris, whose novel was turned down by just about every major publisher in turn, snarling at the last one 'when this is published and becomes a best-seller I'm gonna shove the 100,000th copy up your ass) cleverly anticipates the Hollywood bomber-crew syndrome by having his narrator Mac (James Whitmore) reel off the various 'types' as the recruits are en route to Boot Camp. The film is mainly concerned with the people behind the soldiers and their women and in that respect it is similar to From Here To Eternity with the basic difference that Eternity was primarily about the peace-time army ending as it did with the attack on Pearl Harbor whilst Battle Cry begins with America already well into the War. There are fine performances from Van Heflin (as we would expect), James Whitmore and John Lupton whilst Dorothy Malone is wasted and completely eclipses her love interest Tab Hunter who even back then was known to be gay - it was probably some kind of 'in' joke pairing him with the feral Malone when his 'girl back home', Mona Freeman, was much nearer the mark. Top-billed Raymond Massey also draws only a five-minute appearance but these cavils aside this is a respectable Peyton Place type entertainment but don't mention it seriously in the same breath as 'Attack'.