Load of rubbish!!

i must have seen a different film!!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Did this film come out in 1963? I would guess the year is wrong. Bill Bendix looked just like he did in his films of the late 1940s and 1950s. True that Rory Calhoun looked somewhat older, but something is terribly amiss here, and I'm not even talking about the film just yet.Whoever thought that a war film with such a cast could be that dull? It dealt with 3 American soldiers fleeing from a North Korean prisoner camp. They meet up with a little boy who joins forces with them after his parents are killed.Bendix plays his usual role as a tough guy with a heart of gold. Richard Jaeckel's role as a collaborator just didn't make much sense, but neither did this movie. It's 84 minutes of tedious boredom.O Rory, allowing a kid age 7 to puff away on cigarette was nauseating. Your line that it wouldn't hurt him must have had the American Cancer Society up in arms. No wonder you succumbed to kidney failure, emphysema and diabetes years later. Bendix is also smoking away in this 1963 film, but by 1964 he was dead of stomach cancer. Suspicious of the year of this miserable film.

Movie isn't anything fantastic but it does contain many many scenes of Rory Calhoun standing and walking as if his life depends on it--and given that he's being chased by North Koreans who are ready and eager to kill him at the drop of a hat--it certainly does.I can't really fault anything that happens in the film--its literally something that came on TCM when i wasn't really paying attention, looked up the synopsis of the film and who was in it and ended up watching it mainly because it looked like it was Rory Calhoun Standing and Walking The Motion Picture--which it kind of was.Would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to see Rory Calhoun in all his standing and walking glory. (but to be honest with you i'm positive he's stood and walked in better films then this before..he must have right?)

A.C. Lyles who is primarily known as a producer of B westerns utilizing players past their prime years decided to go in for B Korean War film which combines escaping GI POWS with a good old fashioned boy and his dog story in The Young And The Brave. The results are less than gratifying.The trio of escaping GIs are Rory Calhoun, William Bendix and Robert Ivers. Bendix is really looking way too old to be a convincing combat soldier and in fact he was in his middle Fifties. A friendly Korean farmer and wife help them out which causes their deaths, but their son played by Manuel Padilla and his adopted German Shepherd dog escape with the soldiers. The kid and the dog prove most useful like Rusty and Rin Tin Tin.The location for the film looks a whole lot like many a western was shot there and I suspect A.C. Lyles went to familiar turf to shoot this film. All the players look like they've really got no conviction in this project. Maybe A.C. should have stuck to westerns.

Actually, I didn't find this movie as terrible as you might think. Yes, it has numerous flaws, and moves slow (even for an 84-minute movie). It doesn't compare favorably to other war / action movies of the time. Still, it's one of a comparatively few movies made about the Korean War, and the plot contains several twists to keep it interesting and keep you wondering about the final outcome. I would only suggest that THE YOUNG AND THE BRAVE is more appropriate for children (7-14 years old), who will enjoy and understand the relatively simple and understandable plot, not be confused by too many characters, and possibly identify with the young Han. Adults, on the other hand, will be easily distracted by the movie's flaws and find its "sanitized" story perhaps less enjoyable. Overall, through, it's not a bad movie on the scale of some supposed "classics." A good family movie for a cold Friday night around the VCR. Then put the kids to bed and watch SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.