Sick Product of a Sick System

Purely Joyful Movie!

Admirable film.

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

This has to be in the top 10 of war films. I've seen tonnes of war movies over the years and this is always the one that touches me the deepest. There are some scenes of such pathos that they break your heart. I've always been passionate about history and 20th century world history has always been my main focus. Its a change for individuals to be the focus with the ugliness of war as a backdrop. It deals with the ordinary folk swept along by the brutality of war. The tragedy and the moments of pure humanity. Do you survive or not?. Yes, it jumps around a lot but it further emphasises the chaos of war. There are no straight lines or order. It comes to the inevitable conclusion that there are no victors.

THE VICTORS is a black and white WW2 film following the misadventures of a squad of American soldiers as they work their way through various theatres of war in Europe. They begin in London, narrowly avoiding the Blitz, before moving into occupied Italy and finally - following the D-Day landings - working their way through France back towards Germany.This isn't a film I'd particularly heard about before watching and having seen it I have to say that I found it a bit of a slog to sit through. It's an epic-length movie with a very slow pace and a narrative which is episodic in nature. The soldiers are just that, soldiers, without ever being particularly sympathetic; whether you like them or not depends on how much you like the actors playing them. George Hamilton and George Peppard are both good value and Eli Wallach is great as always, but I could take or leave the rest of them.The film does have its strengths, including some fine cinematography which makes the bombed-out ruins of a war-devastated continent look incredible. There isn't a great deal of action here but that which does occur is realistic and engaging. Playing spot the famous face is fun, as the film includes bit parts for Albert Finney, Roy Scheider, and Peter Fonda. Some moments such as those involving the dog or the Russian soldier are extremely harrowing and downbeat. However, too much of the film chronicles the experiences of the Yanks with various European women, all of them played by top European talent like Jeanne Moreau and Elke Sommer. These romantic interludes are slow and where the film lost my interest, taking the edge off a potential masterpiece.

Many war movies before and since "The Victors" claim to be anti-war. However, the anti-war sentiments are usually tacked onto the end of an action-packed movie full of exhilarating battle scenes. In other words they cheat. The filmmakers want to have their cake and eat it as well."The Victors" does not cheat. Using a portmanteau story structure, the film follows a squad of GIs as they fight through WW2 Europe. Set piece scenes punctuate a background of war and movement, revealing the relationships the soldiers have with the women and the families they encounter in Sicily, France, Britain and Germany. As each vignette fits into place, the strength, weakness, kindness and meanness of the characters is shown. By the end, "The Victors" has revealed war's brutalising effect on the people involved.I can't think of many other movies that used this episodic technique before 1963. The treatment of "The Victors" seems a precursor to the approach Robert Altman took on his later, non-war films "Nashville" and "Short Cuts". In fact "The Victors" was based on a book of short stories as was "Short Cuts" Using WW2 Lowell Thomas newsreels as an ironic counterbalance, but without narration or awkward exposition, "The Victors" makes its points without too heavy a hand. The audience is left to make up its own mind about the events depicted.The episodic nature of the story means that certain sequences pack more punch than others. But every one of these segments delivers yet another insight that if cut would detract from the whole.But it seems the movie was cut in 1963. This was done because of bad reviews at the time. While most reviews of the film these days are glowing, that wasn't always the case.A recurring criticism in 1963 was that a film showing how war brutalises people was simply stating the obvious - as though all war movies at the time showed this. However, with notable exceptions, the opposite was most often the case.Although "The Victors" tackled some of the darker issues of WW2 in an intimate way - sometimes casting the GIs in a bad light - the fact that they were fighting for a higher purpose was summed up in a wordless scene when a concentration camp inmate kisses the hand of one of the approaching GIs after the Germans have fled.Not only is "The Victors" a unique war movie but it is also worthy to sit beside a classic such as "The Best Years of our Lives" in depicting the effects of war and it's aftermath on the lives of ordinary people.

I watched this movie only once.It was on the mess decks on-board a U.S. Navy destroyer, in a 'war zone' (Viet Nam, but the ship was in a rescue destroyer operation off the coast of Hainan during the bombing of Haiphong). It was just before or just after Christmas of 1965. The film had a profound effect on me. After all these years it still haunts my memory of that deployment (9/65-4/66). We witnessed little in the way of combat and we all (ship and crew) came away unscathed. But, for several days after the showing of that film there was much idle discussion about the apparent futility of it all.Ever since seeing the film I have thought of it often. I'd dearly love to see it again.The reviews that appear here are wonderful and extremely thoughtful. It amazes me that there are so many people who remember this film with the same admiration that I do.In summary, I remember coming away from the viewing with a very hollow feeling in my gut. As a career sailor, enlisted to officer, that feeling never left me and it did much to influence my conduct and perspective.