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John Huston on the Civil War's "blood and dee-struction," where the San Pietro lessons come in handy. Drilling and waiting with the Union regiment and then marching orders at last, the Youth (Audie Murphy) is eager and scared, "a right dumb good feller." (Sound advice comes courtesy of an unseen Reb sentry under the moonlight: "Don't go getting one of them little red badges of courage pinned on you.") Griffith for the battlefield, close-ups in the trenches versus long shots of riders and explosions. Sunshine streaked through a tree is a solipsistic vision of sham triumph, the Youth sees it before running for his life and again at the very end, in between there's his journey as "mental outcast." A stark visualization of the Stephen Crane novel, strong enough to survive its careless abbreviation at the hands of MGM scissors. Baby-faced Murphy prematurely aged by combat, matched by Bill Mauldin as another wizened boy reviving personal terrors. John Dierkes like a gnarled totem pole that topples, Arthur Hunnicutt in stubbly hawk profile, Royal Dano dilapidated in somber low angle—daguerreotypes cannily unsettled by Huston. (Andy Devine's broad grin is a lantern for darkened woods in a sustained tracking shot.) Generals and canned bromides, "small wounds, big talk" (cf. Paths of Glory). The one awake visage in the sleeping camp, the deserter overcompensates back in the field, his charge into Confederate fire is a trenchant hallucination hinging on the image of soldiers like scarecrows under the weight of fraying flags. "The men look much bigger through the powder smoke." Marching troops and tumbled carriage, Malick in The Thin Red Line builds on the transcendental angle. Cinematography by Harold Rosson. With Douglas Dick, Tim Durant, and Robert Easton. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |