I love this movie so much

Powerful

Good start, but then it gets ruined

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Robert Mitchum plays Colonel Steve Janowski--an infantry genius who is stationed in South Korea just before the outbreak of the Korean War. His job is to help train the South Korean Army to defend their country in case of invasion...something that occurs in the first few minutes of the film. The story consists of either the Colonel and his Staff Sergeant (Charles McGraw) in combat or the Colonel chasing a pretty UN worker (Ann Blyth). Generally, the film is well made and the action sequences good, though the overuse of stock footage is a problem common to many war pictures. The viewer might also be surprised because it's a surprisingly bloodthirsty and brutal picture--with footage of charred corpses and the like. Not a war picture for the squeamish, that's for sure...but very well made and acted.

ONE MINUTE TO ZERO (1952) is a hokey Korean War movie filled with tired war movie clichés, but it's easy enough to digest and Ann Blyth is soooooo pretty that you don't mind sitting through it.The initial conflict between Army colonel Robert Mitchum and United Nations worker Ann Blyth soon blossoms into romance, but can Blyth let herself get involved with a soldier during wartime, knowing he's always in harm's way? Meanwhile, Mitchum and company have tough decisions to make trying to hold back the guerrilla fighters, who hide among the swarms of refugees.Made while our boys were over there fighting the commies, the film has an understandable propagandistic slant, but it's interesting to see a movie of the era set during the Korean War, rather than WWII. And the drama does touch upon some interesting moral gray areas.Robert Mitchum is always good, but Charles McGraw nearly steals the show in a solid supporting performance as Mitchum's gruff sidekick in the field. Also look for Alfred, the husky young janitor from MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET (1947), as one of the soldiers.The film's romantic theme seems to be the song "When I Fall in Love", as popularized by Nat King Cole.

A real good Korea war film that captures the realism and tough decision making without it being a 'Combat TV' show look-a-like. Renting it and watching with my father, a Korean war veteran, on Veterans Day 2007 was great. Still, that one segment in the movie with the terrorist hiding among a line of hundreds of Korean refugees and seeing US sends Cannon shells among the crowd was gut wrenching. Nonetheless, the actual F-94 Starfire jet Scenes were the most footage ever shown in a Korean war film more so than "Men of the Fighting Lady" a distant second.Lastly, the casualty footage for a '51 /'52 was shocking. However, that the film contains a Romantic storyline & some comedy relief by young GI Gomer Pyle type soldier was amazing for the Director to squeeze these items in this film. This film, IMO, is one of better Korea war films along with "Retreat Hell" with Frank Lovejoy, along with a couple other films like "Pork Chop Hill" with Greg Peck.

"Pork Chop Hill" with Gregory Peck, "The Men" with Robert Ryan and Aldo Ray "Fix Bayonets" with Richard Basehart and "The Steel Helmet" with Gene Evans who also starred in "Fix Bayonets", are the top Korean War dramas. This one seems like a second bill WWII git them Nazis and Jap films. The romance angle: the reluctant widow/woman trying to fight off her addiction to gunslingers can be seen played out in westerns and gangster flicks. Robert Mitchum is not as human as he was in "The Story of GI JOE" instead this "Mustang" ( Old Army-ese for a ranker who made it to the officer class without a West Point, VMI, or a well placed political connection) just is Ares gift to the warrior class. Charles McGraw and William Talman two of the best sinister looking and sounding actors of their era, become bland nonentities in this flick. There are some grim moments: Talman's descent into a flaming hutch after his recon plane is shot down, the North Korean infiltrated refugee column being blasted apart,and the gradual attrition on Mitchum and McGraw's outfit ( the film is set right at the beginning of the Korean "ShootOut" before MacArthur's Inchon Landing temporarily turned the tide) but overall there is a lack of tension and good action set pieces to make this film a contender as a Good war movie/Action Film. Perhap's director Tay Garnett suffered from MGM-itis every thing must be pretty because this movie ain't hard or gritty enough. Now if Aldrich,Siegal, Fuller,or Milestone had directed it...