This blog was begun Tuesday night, March 9 2021 :
Well, guess what? Tonight's film was once again based on a play, was dialogue heavy, and was stylistically not what I expected when I chose it from a list of "old black and white war movies", our main genre of late. It sounds like I was in the same sinking boat I found myself in while watching "Tight Spot" the other night. So why was I able to not only endure "Eight Iron Men"(1952), but to find it redeeming enough to warrant a positive review? Two words come to mind : brevity and precision. While there was Endless Yammering in both films, "Eight"'s wordy wanderings were divided between several characters, and the editing was sharp, whereas in "Tight Spot" the director allowed Ginger Rogers to riff ad nauseam in Brooklynese, with no cutaway, and thus no chance for the audience to come up for air.
"Eight Iron Men" stars Lee Marvin as an Army Sergeant heading up a platoon of G.I.s hunkered down in a bombed-out village in Italy. This is a set-piece, with one location, but it looks very realistic and the director was Edward Dmytryk, another top level Hollywood Craftsman, who made everything from the weird Karloff Klassic "The Devil Commands", to the well-known noirs "Murder, My Sweet" and "Crossfire", to the epic "Raintree County" with Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor, to the major war release "The Young Lions" starring Marlon Brando. In other words, Dmytryk (who was one of the Hollywood Ten blacklist), knew how to put a film together no matter the content, so even though "Eight" is not an action based combat movie, it still looks great, moves well, and the acting is uniformly good.
The main character is actually not Marvin's "Sgt. Mooney" but the wisecracking "Pvt. Collucci", played by Bonar Colleano, whose name is unfamiliar but you're sure to recognise his face. He will do most of the talking in the 80 minute picture, constantly joking to break the tension. As the movie opens, three of the men are out on patrol when they are opened up on by a German machine gun nest. Two of them manage to make it back to their outpost, a crumbling brick house, but the third falls and becomes trapped in a muddy bomb pit. Sgt. Mooney decides that there's no way to rescue their comrade until nightfall as the machine gunner still lays in wait. This causes a huge bone of contention between Mooney and "Private Coke" (Richard Kiley), a gung-ho G.I. who wants to pull the soldier out of the pit now. Kiley doesn't seem to care that Marvin's in charge; he yells back at his Sergeant as if he's on equal footing, until Marvin threatens to deck him. Meanwhile, "Private Collucci" cracks one-liners to keep the fracas from boiling over. Actor Colleano bears a resemblance to Alan Alda, and his vocal delivery is eerily similar, so much so that his endless jokes sound like a scene from M.A.S.H. He has foils in some of the other soldiers (there are eight in all), and this repartee does go on a bit long, but not to the extent it did in "Tight Spot", where you were fighting to stay above water.
The whole plot boils down to Arguing The Moral Imperative : should the men attempt to rescue the trapped soldier immediately, with high risk to their own lives (Kiley's position), or should they wait, because it's not worth risking the entire platoon, and besides, they don't even know if the soldier's still alive (Lee Marvin's stance). Adding to the pressure is that the squad is scheduled to move out the next day. Their hard-case captain (stationed down the road) won't make any exceptions for a man left behind. If they don't extricate their buddy soon, they'll lose the chance. Then he'll certainly die if he hasn't already.
The main reason to watch this film is that it looks great and the actors are excellent. Really, you could substitute the plot for "12 Angry Men" and you'd have the same format. It's an Argument Film, peppered with corny jokes (and a dream sequence about a gorgeous woman), with about ten minutes of actual combat at the beginning and end. I'm gonna give "Eight Iron Men" just Two Regular Thumbs, but I still say you should watch it, just because Short Films Rule and this one delivers despite it's drawbacks. ////
The previous night's War Flick was action-oriented, and as a result was a bit more involving. It was the Veddy Britttissh "Tonight We Raid Calais"(1943), directed by John Brahm, yet another Hollywood Craftsman (born in Germany) who helmed everything from classic horror movies ("The Lodger", "Hangover Square"), to truckloads of episodic television, including "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and twelve episodes of "The Twilight Zone". His name helped cinch me on this flick, in addition to seeing on it's IMDB page that the movie is a favorite of Quentin Tarantino's. Though his own films are hit-and-miss for me (mostly miss), Q does know his Hollywood history, so his recommendation lent the picture some weight.
Very briefly, John Sutton stars as an English commando, who volunteers to trek into German-held territory in France, in order to locate a munitions plant and mark it for bombing by the RAF. He makes his way to the town of Calais (and-a-hey-and-a-hey), where he meets a family of French farmers who direct him to the factory. It's located right on the outskirts of their property. This leads to the plot conundrum of collaboration, which we dealt with the other night. The father (Lee J. Cobb, doing his best to imply a French accent) is willing to hide John Sutton in his barn, at the risk of his entire family being shot if Sutton is discovered by the Nazis. Cobb's daughter (French actress Anabella), doesn't want him there. Her brother was killed by a Brit fighting on the German side; thus she hates all Englishmen. To complicate matters, she is being courted (meaning "forced to comply") by a Nazi suitor (played by Howard Da Silva hiding a Brooklyn accent). He visits their farmhouse on a regular basis, which will make it difficult to keep Commando Sutton hidden. A solution to this problem is arrived at by Sutton himself, that he will impersonate the deceased son. He speaks fluent French, so this deception will allow him to mingle among the villagers and recruit more help for the subterfuge. The catch is that no one besides the family members know the Cobb son is dead.
Or do they? /////
I know we've been stuck on war films, but these two are short and tight. "Tonight We Raid Calais" runs just 70 minutes, the plot and action flow swiftly, and like Edward Dmytryk, John Brahm knows his way around a camera and a movie set. Both "Eight Iron Men" and "Calais" look fantastic; I'm giving the latter Two Big Thumbs Up. Tarantino was right, it's a Good 'Un, and you should watch both films back-to-back. You can get in and out in two and a half hours for the double feature. Need I add that both flicks are in Beautiful Black & White?
That's all I've got for the moment. Still workin' on early Beatles in the afternoon (I'm up to "Beatles '65") and Mahler at night (the 4th symphony). Still reading about Sir Paul McCartney, too.
Have an awesome day. I'm gonna do a CSUN walk before it starts raining again, then back to Pearl's.
Tons and tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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