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The interconnected reds of the Stars and Stripes, the Union Jack and the Rising Sun fill the screen at the onset, they tear and fade in a prelude out of E.E. Cummings. The main formulation is from Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai, Robert Aldrich goes further back to Walsh's Objective, Burma! for the Vietnam view painstakingly transposed to 1942 South Pacific. The American lieutenant (Cliff Robertson) prefers beachfront to battlefield, reluctantly he goes to the Japanese-occupied island following a reprimand from the captain (Henry Fonda). (FDR watches over the scene from a portrait, though the reunion of the stars of The Best Man rather underlines the shift from Kennedy to Nixon.) Receiving him is "a bunch of limeys running around, playing soldier," the goal is to destroy the enemy's radio base, "a bloody suicide mission." The salty Scot (Ian Bannen) marches into the jungle with the proper cracked spirit, warbling "Teddy Bears' Picnic," the commander (Denholm Elliott) keeps his own brutish streak behind a civilized veneer. The solitary sensible voices belong to the cynical combat medic (Michael Caine) and the Japanese major (Ken Takakura) whose words echo in the bush. Brawling masculinity "like water in a funnel," the protagonist frozen at the time of the raid and then while staring into the leader's dead eyes. In the year of MASH and Catch-22, the veteran's brand of straight antiwar absurdism loses none of its sting. The ring on the severed hand, the loudspeaker in the trees. "Up yer pipe, ya cockney ponce!" The ending elucidates the spectacle in The Dirty Dozen, a dash to death with zigzagging warriors before snipers and a cheering audience. Heroism? Too late, says Aldrich. With Ronald Fraser, Harry Andrews, Percy Herbert, Lance Percival, and William Beckley.
--- Fernando F. Croce |