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I had this in my Netflix queue for over a year, and it continued to read, 'very long wait'. So when Amazon had it on sale in Blu-ray for $10.00, I just bought it. After viewing it for the very first time last night, I was totally blown-away by it's 'freshness and craftsmanship', this, from 1949. I absolutely loved the film and it's cast of scrappy, well acted Marines performed by a highly skilled cast that included, Van Johnson, John Hodiak, Marshall Thompson, Ricardo Montalban, George Murphy, Don Taylor, Richard Jaeckel, and in an Oscar nominated turn, James Whitmore. The actors were all very young here, and many of you reading this will not even recognize their names, but here in this film, they were all stars in their own rights. The first few minutes of the film started out without much of anything to crow about, but as we get to know the soldiers, the film REALLY grows on you. The film was nominated for Best Film as well as Best Director, and won for it's B&W Cinematography (looking excellent here in Blu-ray), as well as for it's terrific Screenplay written by Robert Pirosh. This film made me laugh out-loud and in several scenes actually got to me emotionally enough to make my eyes water. Great screenplay!
I have to say that this 1949 film simply runs circles around Christopher Nolan's recent 'Dunkirk'. With all the bells and whistles Nolan offered, he couldn't make me care about a single character he wrote in 'Dunkirk'. If you enjoy films about W.W. II, see this film!
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One of my favorites too, Dave. No false heroics, no patriotic speeches. Just guys trying to survive from day to day. Loved Van Johnson and the eggs. If you liked this, you will probably like The Story of GI Joe.
Thanks for the tip MGH. Nope, I've never seen this one either, Netflix has it listed, but it's not available. I can click on the title, but then wait for years for Netflix to actually PURCHASE the film for it's members to rent. I'll look for it online at a cheap price. According to the synopsis at Netflix, and it's GREAT REVIEWS by it's members, it's probably not to different from 'Battleground'. Different actors, story and different part of the world at war, but it's Directed by William Wellman as well, a couple of years before he did 'Battleground'. For me personally, the most important part of a film is it's story, if the story doesn't grab you, you're merely 'treading water'. This screenplay was nominated for an Oscar as well. Robert Mitchum in W.W. II, I think I've only seen him in 'Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison', and that film is a favorite of mine. Looking forward to finding it for sale online.
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Bob Mitch - Dave, you never seen Anzio, Longest Day, Enemy Below, Midway and Winds of War!!??
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Bob Mitch - Dave, you never seen Anzio, Longest Day, Enemy Below, Midway and Winds of War!!??
Hi BillCarson. I've seen lots of films with Robert Mitchum, and I have favorites of course. But I've seen NONE of the films you've just mentioned. I'm guessing here, but I may have had some sort of 'aversion' to what are now called 'Classic W.W. II Films', because as a child growing up it seemed my Dad was always watching them on t.v. and shows like 'The Rat Patrol', 'Combat' etc. In our house back then, HE rulled the t.v. and we rarely got to view what we wanted to. Of course, this is merely conjecture.
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Incidentally MGH, 'The Story of G.I. Joe' is out of print even on dvd. There's one available, for $120.00 at Amazon, but I'll wait for whatever studio has the rights to it to release it on Blu-ray. Now this one I REALLY want to see, what with a very young Robert Mitchum in an Oscar nominated role!
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Posted: |
Jul 18, 2018 - 2:56 PM
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mgh
(Member)
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Incidentally MGH, 'The Story of G.I. Joe' is out of print even on dvd. There's one available, for $120.00 at Amazon, but I'll wait for whatever studio has the rights to it to release it on Blu-ray. Now this one I REALLY want to see, what with a very young Robert Mitchum in an Oscar nominated role!
I got mine off of ebay at a reasonable price. Yes, he was nominated for a Oscar and he deserved it; he is excellent. The interesting thing is, he hadn't quite become Robert Mitchum yet. There is a great scene in it where they are flushing out a sniper. As a matter of fact, I think I'll watch it again.
(I thought I found it for you at Amazon, but it looks like it is Region 2. Oh, well.)
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Posted: |
Jul 18, 2018 - 11:53 PM
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By: |
Airborne
(Member)
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I absolutely loved the film and it's cast of scrappy, well acted Marines performed by a highly skilled cast that included, Van Johnson, John Hodiak, Marshall Thompson, Ricardo Montalban, George Murphy, Don Taylor, Richard Jaeckel, and in an Oscar nominated turn, James Whitmore.
ARMY, not Marines. And John Hodiak, a very underrated actor who died tragically young, is the most memorable in a really splendid cast. There's a real ring of rough-edged authenticity in everything he does here.
By the way, in case you don't know, except for the boot camp, the final marching scene as Kinney orders his platoon to about-face and march to the rear and various stock shots of winter landscapes, EVERY shot in the move was taken in MGM's soundstages and back lot, with fake snow and fog. Works flawlessly, utterly convincing.
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Posted: |
Jul 19, 2018 - 12:28 AM
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Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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By the way, in case you don't know, except for the boot camp, the final marching scene as Kinney orders his platoon to about-face and march to the rear and various stock shots of winter landscapes, EVERY shot in the move was taken in MGM's soundstages and back lot, with fake snow and fog. Works flawlessly, utterly convincing.
Production took place from 5 April to 3 June 1949. A pre-production news item in the Hollywood Reporter noted that half of the picture was to be filmed in Northern California, Oregon and Washington. A May 1949 Hollywood Reporter news item adds that Fort Lewis, WA served as the background for the tank sequence depicting the relief of Bastogne.
Producer Dore Schary ordered twenty-five sets built on one sound stage, and then had art director Hans Peters map out in detail the terrain, action and possible camera angles. Copies of these drawings were then given to director William Wellman and cinematographer Paul Vogel. Some of the sets were used several times over as the film's actions shifted, according to a June 1949 Hollywood Reporter news item.
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By the way, in case you don't know, except for the boot camp, the final marching scene as Kinney orders his platoon to about-face and march to the rear and various stock shots of winter landscapes, EVERY shot in the move was taken in MGM's soundstages and back lot, with fake snow and fog. Works flawlessly, utterly convincing.
Production took placed from 5 April to 3 June 1949. A pre-production news item in the Hollywood Reporter noted that half of the picture was to be filmed in Northern California, Oregon and Washington. A May 1949 Hollywood Reporter news item adds that Fort Lewis, WA served as the background for the tank sequence depicting the relief of Bastogne.
Producer Dore Schary ordered twenty-five sets built on one sound stage, and then had art director Hans Peters map out in detail the terrain, action and possible camera angles. Copies of these drawings were then given to director William Wellman and cinematographer Paul Vogel. Some of the sets were used several times over as the film's actions shifted, according to a June 1949 Hollywood Reporter news item.
BobDiMucci, thanks, how'd you know that? I know what fake snow looks like, and perhaps some scenes had fake snow. But in a lot of the scenes, it was real. In the Blu-ray edition, you can see extreme detail of pine needles, dirt, mud, and snow as it's falling. As a snowflake lands on a shirt collar or a glove if you continue to gaze at that spot, it begins to dissolve. My main objective in the mentioning of this film title was to bring a little notice to other 'newbies' about the merits of this outstanding film. I particularly loved the scene where Van Johnson is speaking to the Belgian (?) Woman named Denise in her home kitchen. Denise is holding a large loaf of bread up to her chest and is slicing it (against her chest) with a huge knife, drawing the knife towards her breasts. Van Johnson sees what we the audience sees, his face shows the extreme alarm and his arms momentarily reach out to warn her of the visible danger...but she's finished with no harm done, and he just sort of melts down. And of course as MGH described...'THE EGGS', and Van Johnson.
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Posted: |
Jul 19, 2018 - 3:41 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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BobDiMucci, thanks, how'd you know that? I know what fake snow looks like, and perhaps some scenes had fake snow. But in a lot of the scenes, it was real. In the Blu-ray edition, you can see extreme detail of pine needles, dirt, mud, and snow as it's falling. As a snowflake lands on a shirt collar or a glove if you continue to gaze at that spot, it begins to dissolve.
The information comes from the American Film Institute, and from articles in the Hollywood Reporter that they reference. I suspect that the scenes you mention were filmed in the studio. It would be hard to plan on using natural snowfall in April-June even in the higher elevations of the West Coast mountains. Probably a lot easier to manufacture a little falling snow for a few scenes in the studio, to make the fake stuff on the ground look more real.
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Posted: |
Jul 21, 2018 - 4:52 PM
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manderley
(Member)
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We had both Van Johnson and George Murphy on camera discussing their appearances in BATTLEGROUND at length in the 6+ hour Turner Entertainment documentary, MGM: WHEN THE LION ROARS, and some, but I think not all of their comments made it into the final cut.
Other than the training sequences, the aforementioned stock shots, plus a few walking around shots outdoors on MGM's Lot 3 hills surrounding the New Salem wharf area, virtually the rest of the film was shot on either Stage 15 or 30, both huge stages where all of the BRIGADOON highlands or GREEN MANSIONS jungles were later built.
The gentlemen discussed their participation in this particular film, how it was to come to work each morning and spend time doing scenes in the foggy, chilly (the stage was kept unheated), white-out environment. It was, apparently, 100 % believable to them during the time they performed there.
As to actual snow, the drift snow outdoors most commonly used on the ground was white gypsum, sometimes augmented in closer shots with shaved/blown ice. If the gypsum needed to be walked on and have a crunchy layer on top it was usually sprayed with water and left to dry temporarily until the next take. Actors could walk on this and it would break up, much like actual snow does when it has set up for awhile.
On-camera falling snow has varied over the years. Early on, in the 20s and 30s particularly, bleached corn flakes were often used, but were often a problem bringing small rodents to the sets, and later on, causing sound noise when large masses of cornflakes were dropping around the actors or they were walking though it as early sound was being recorded.
In the late 1930s, MGM (and perhaps others) seemed to be experimenting with chopped white chicken feathers for falling snow. These feathers fall very slowly and languidly and are quite beautiful onscreen. One film which seems to use these quite extensively is the late 1930s, THE LITTLE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER, which has quite a number of soundstage falling snow exteriors. Visuals aside, however, the problem with these is actors accidentally sucking in a feather or two during dialog, and choking or coughing during the take. In one film, I can't remember which, there is a moment when one actor gets a feather in his mouth and very discreetly and naturally gets it out without dropping a line. Still, this system, while beautiful for imagery is also somewhat dangerous and has probably been outlawed on the sets today, at least in foreground action.
Falling, dissolving, moist snow, is most usually achieved by blowing specially formulated chemical foam at high speed through hoses into the blades of the huge studio Ritter Fans, also blowing at high speed. The fans are usually directed upwards toward the "greens" lighting grids where the foam has now been broken up into small blobs of various sizes and falls back down again onto the set and the actors' clothes and hats where it can melt fairly naturally.
More recently, very light polyethylene plastic (like shopping bags) is machine-scribed/beaten to give it a foggy translucent kind of look, then chopped into very fine pieces---the largest usually less than 3/4 inch, with very rough irregular edges. This also falls slowly (like feathers) and looks pretty natural, though it's a nightmare to clean up from the stage floor, because it is so lightweight and blows around so easily when you try to sweep it up.
So much for snow......now let's talk about onscreen rain on the soundstage......... 
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Hey manderley, good to see you posting.
And what a post!!
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Manderley, it's great to see another of your interesting posts!
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Posted: |
Jul 26, 2018 - 1:16 PM
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filmusicnow
(Member)
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Incidentally MGH, 'The Story of G.I. Joe' is out of print even on dvd. There's one available, for $120.00 at Amazon, but I'll wait for whatever studio has the rights to it to release it on Blu-ray. Now this one I REALLY want to see, what with a very young Robert Mitchum in an Oscar nominated role!
I got mine off of ebay at a reasonable price. Yes, he was nominated for a Oscar and he deserved it; he is excellent. The interesting thing is, he hadn't quite become Robert Mitchum yet. There is a great scene in it where they are flushing out a sniper. As a matter of fact, I think I'll watch it again.
(I thought I found it for you at Amazon, but it looks like it is Region 2. Oh, well.)
This was a feature film that even Ted Turner was looking for.
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Incidentally MGH, 'The Story of G.I. Joe' is out of print even on dvd. There's one available, for $120.00 at Amazon, but I'll wait for whatever studio has the rights to it to release it on Blu-ray. Now this one I REALLY want to see, what with a very young Robert Mitchum in an Oscar nominated role!
I got mine off of ebay at a reasonable price. Yes, he was nominated for a Oscar and he deserved it; he is excellent. The interesting thing is, he hadn't quite become Robert Mitchum yet. There is a great scene in it where they are flushing out a sniper. As a matter of fact, I think I'll watch it again.
(I thought I found it for you at Amazon, but it looks like it is Region 2. Oh, well.)
This was a feature film that even Ted Turner was looking for.
THANKS THOUGH! Ted Turner was looking for it as well? I suppose the only solution is to wait for Manderley to vacation in The South of France in September, then break into his film library and steal his 16 or 35 mm copy!
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Since the thread has come up again, I'm going to add more praise to it.
Spoilers ahead! Be warned.
One of the most powerful scenes is when the squad is ambushed. Van Johnson panics and makes a run for it. He is clean away when Marshall Thompson comes up behind him, and says something like, "What do we do now?" Because of that Johnson can't run. He stays and fights.
This was one of the most honest sequences I have ever seen in a movie. Johnson is a "hero", but he runs, probably like any of us would have. I think it took courage to put it in the movie and for Johnson to do it. That's one of the many things that makes this a great film.
Yes, I recall that scene. I've only viewed the film once (so far), and though I recall that scene as you described it, I don't think I put the importance that IS THERE as you described it, in my first viewing. However, in retrospect, it's totally honest. Perhaps these scenes are what propelled the Academy members to reward the film's screenplay. In 1949, Hollywood wasn't used to War Films that 'rang true'. Personally, I enjoyed the brief scene inside Denise's home as she descends the stairs to her basement, the camera changes it's focus from her, to Van Johnson who's standing at the top of the stairs. And in close-up, the camera lingers on Johnson's eyes which are moving (along with Denise's backside), from left, to right, to left, to right...
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You know how you might see the same film over and over, and sometimes you pick up on something that had escaped your notice on the previous viewing? Last night I put in the Blu-ray of 'Battleground' and viewed it for a second time. Unless I'm reading something totally in an incorrect way, I'm surprised at what I think may have been very daring for a 1949 film. There is a scene in the film where The Americans are stranded in the snowy woods and hoping for the fog to lift. A plane flys overhead and you see printed flyers coming down among the men. The printed flyers are from The Germans imploring the Americans to 'give-up' and surrender just a few hundred yards away. One soldier wads up the flyer and tosses it away. Then a soldier steps forward and very gingerly and methodically picks up one flyer, then another and another. After he has about 7 of them he exits the scene by walking out of camera range to his left and disappears. Nothing is spoken, and the scene immediately changes. This scene meant nothing to me the first time I viewed it, but now I sense he exits the scene and walks away out of frame to go to the toilet and to use the German printed flyers as toilet-paper.Am I wrong? I'm probably the ONLY person who did not 'get it' the first time it played, but considering it was made in 1949, and Hollwood never even showed a toilet-bowl on screen untill 'Psycho' in 1960, it was a very subtle gesture by Director Wellman.
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Posted: |
Nov 11, 2018 - 12:28 PM
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By: |
mgh
(Member)
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You know how you might see the same film over and over, and sometimes you pick up on something that had escaped your notice on the previous viewing? Last night I put in the Blu-ray of 'Battleground' and viewed it for a second time. Unless I'm reading something totally in an incorrect way, I'm surprised at what I think may have been very daring for a 1949 film. There is a scene in the film where The Americans are stranded in the snowy woods and hoping for the fog to lift. A plane flys overhead and you see printed flyers coming down among the men. The printed flyers are from The Germans imploring the Americans to 'give-up' and surrender just a few hundred yards away. One soldier wads up the flyer and tosses it away. Then a soldier steps forward and very gingerly and methodically picks up one flyer, then another and another. After he has about 7 of them he exits the scene by walking out of camera range to his left and disappears. Nothing is spoken, and the scene immediately changes. This scene meant nothing to me the first time I viewed it, but now I sense he exits the scene and walks away out of frame to go to the toilet and to use the German printed flyers as toilet-paper.Am I wrong? I'm probably the ONLY person who did not 'get it' the first time it played, but considering it was made in 1949, and Hollwood never even showed a toilet-bowl on screen untill 'Psycho' in 1960, it was a very subtle gesture by Director Wellman.
I remember that scene too, and I got the same message.
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