Captivating movie !

As Good As It Gets

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Fixed bayonets! is directed by Sam Fuller and Fuller writes the screenplay which is based around a novel by John Brophy. It stars Richard Basehart, Gene Evans, Michael O'Shea, Richard Hylton, Craig Hill and Skip Homeier. Music is by Roy Webb and cinematography by Lucien Ballard.The Korean War, and a platoon of GIs are tasked with diverting the enemy to allow the command units time to regroup and prepare for a counter attack."Somebody's got to get left behind, get their bayonets wet. It's tough picking out an outfit, but it's got to be picked"Samuel Fuller was a real life infantryman combat veteran of WWII, so any time he chose to direct a war film it was time to sit up and take notice, Fixed bayonets! finds him in prime form. All his great traits are here, how things are so understated yet so potent, how his characters are stripped to a very real human form, there's no fuss, filler or pointless flab here. Every line of dialogue and the various combat scenarios positively beg our utmost attention, so as to get some sort of feel as to just what it must have been like in war.Plot revolves around 48 men holding a rearguard action so as to give 15,000 others a break. The odds aren't really in their favour, because not only do they have to face the oncoming enemy and all their numbers, but they have to battle the terrain, for they are up in the snowy mountains, the harsh coldness a fitting accompaniment to the psychological pangs at work in the platoon. The main narrative thread is based around Basehart's Cpl. Denno, who has trouble shooting an enemy soldier, which is not great since there's a very real chance he may soon have to take command. Ouch! The pressure of impending command...Combat action scenes are thrilling, artillery warfare in the snow constructed with skillful thought. While this wouldn't be a Fuller film without some edge of seat drama, with the stand out here a breath holding sequence of events in a minefield. Tech guys come up trumps, the sound mix is bang on (a haunting cacophony of Asian bugles really rattles the head), Ballard's black and white photography is crisp and captures the pending peril vibe suitably, and Webb's musical compositions are unobtrusive and rightly keeping focus on the human drama.A lesson in being simple yet so potently effective, Fuller on blob. 8/10

FIXED BAYONETS – 1951 This is not an antiseptic flag waving propaganda war film. It is a brutal, hard hitting piece about fear, and courage, among men who know they could die at any moment. Director Sam Fuller pulls no punches in this Korean War film from 1951.The US, UN and South Korean forces had pushed the North Korean Army back almost to the border with China. They were then caught off guard when Chinese Red Army forces attacked them. This soon forced a massive retreat along the whole front.This film is about a small group of American soldiers left behind to man a rear guard post. They need to make the Chinese believe that they are facing a much larger unit. The US unit needs to delay the Chinese for 48 hours to allow their own troops a chance to fall back and regroup.They chose a narrow pass through the mountains to base their defence on. They mine the approaches and set up a series of machine gun posts. Whenever the Chinese probe the defences, the American hit back hard and heavy, keeping the Chinese guessing as to the US unit strength.This tactic can only work for so long, as there are only 50 or so soldiers. First the LT. in charge, Craig Hill, is killed, then, the two senior sergeants, Michael O'Shea and Gene Evans bite the bullet. Command of the survivors, falls to Richard Basehart. Basehart is a former officer candidate who has a fear of giving orders.Forced to step up and take charge, Basehart fights his personal demons and does just that. He holds the post for as long as he can, then leads the survivors back to meet with the rest of the division.Except for a couple of scenes, the whole production was filmed on a sound stage. This does not distract from the film at all, there are plenty of well-staged battle sequences etc throughout the film. The action is down and dirty, with all looking like they have been put through a wringer. This is a gritty, well-made war film.The director, Sam Fuller also scored big a little earlier with another Korean War film, THE STEEL HELMET. Both these are well worth a look for war film buffs.

Sam Fuller's no nonsense approach to film-making seemed perfectly suited to the war genre. Films like "Fixed Bayonets", "The Steel Helmet" and "Big Red One" have a certain relentless quality. They're fast, tough, blunt, feature urgent camera work and screenplays which whittle away the fat and get right down to the point. There's no macho heroism, no flag waving, no mourning the dead. Instead, Fuller cuts through the crap and gets down to simple truths.Indeed, Gene Evans, who plays Sgt Rock in "Fixed Bayonets!" and Sgt Zack in "The Steel Helmet", seems to himself embody Fuller's style. He's simple, bear-like, gruff, angry, world weary, cynical, yet wise and at times warm. He's the product of a post-Hemmingway era of pulp journalism and spring-action typewriters. Fuller's style itself relies more on punchy dialogue, the rhythm of words, the staccato patter of syllables and the energy of screenplays to create their power. Visuals were almost secondary. Strange then that "Fixed Bayonets", plot wise at least, is so simple. It deals with a group of US soldiers who attempt to hold a mountain pass while the North Korean army advances. Their aim is to convince the enemy that their small 48 man squad is much larger than it really appears. If they succeed, they'd have provided enough of a distraction for a 15,000 man US regiment to pull out of the area, unharassed.This notion of "pretending", of being "more of a man" than you really are, is Fuller's chief concern. And so throughout the film characters wrestle over, not duty, but responsibility. How can one little man step up and take on the responsibility for the lives of other men? The rest of the film plays like a tactical handbook on how to hold a secure location. Fuller shows us how to lay mines, sucker the enemy in, keep your feet safe from frostbite and take down a tank. There's an almost journalistic sort of attention to detail, which of course masks the films politics; its refusal to approach the broader ethical questions raised by US actions in Korea at the time. 7.9/10 - Plays like one of those pulpy combat comic books printed in the 40s and 50s.

Here is the OTHER of Sam Fuller's classic Korean War films - the other is "The Steel Helmet", arguably the better of the two - which now thanks to the miracle of DVD will get the wider audience, I pray, which it so richly deserves. The AMAZON site, of course, for this masterpiece has some nice comments, too, and you can get the DVD there at a good price. I recommend this one as the other one to veterans of combat infantry units, who aren't stuck in the "puppets and stew-meat" mentality of the puerile Steven Spielberg, who tries to blend "Combat!" TV episodes with Tom Savini makeup effects in "Saving PVT Ryan". RFuller's depth of characterization and his shades of meaning in his magnificent closeups are just a ten thousand yard stare better than 99% of the stuff that passes for 'war' movies. So, pretend you are a ten-year old boy, get Fuller's Korean War movies, and prepare to be shocked.