Battleground (1949)

User Rating:

7.6/10   

Director:

William A. Wellman

Writers:

Robert Pirosh (story)
Robert Pirosh (screenplay)

Release Date:

20 January 1950 (USA)

Genre:

Action | War | Drama

Tagline:

The First Great Picture Of The Second World War !

Plot:

A squad of the 101st Airborne Division copes with being trapped in the besieged city of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge.

Plot Keywords:

Army | Battle Of The Bulge | Infantry | Paratrooper | WWII

Awards:

Won 2 Oscars. Another 3 wins & 5 nominations

Cast

Van Johnson	...	Holley
John Hodiak	...	Jarvess
Ricardo Montalban	...	Roderigues
George Murphy	...	'Pop' Stazak
Marshall Thompson	...	Jim Layton
Jerome Courtland	...	Abner Spudler
Don Taylor	...	Standiferd
Bruce Cowling	...	Wolowicz
James Whitmore	...	Kinnie
Douglas Fowley	...	'Kipp' Kippton
Leon Ames	...	The Chaplain
Herbert Anderson	...	Hansan (as Guy Anderson)
Thomas E. Breen	...	Doc
Denise Darcel	...	Denise
Richard Jaeckel	...	Bettis

Runtime:

118 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | French | German

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Australia:PG (TV rating) | USA:Approved (certificate #13886) | Canada:PG (video rating) | Australia:G | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 | Sweden:15

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

Producer Dore Schary had been recruited to rejoin MGM following his successful run at RKO. This was one of the projects (and one that RKO boss Howard Hughes had rejected) that Schary insisted on making as part of his employment at MGM, over the protestations of MGM head Louis B. Mayer who believed that movie audiences had had their fill of war in general and war films in particular. Schary got his way. The movie was such a box office hit that within months he was elected to the board at MGM and MGM-parent Loew's Inc. chief Nick Schenck would fire Mayer by the summer of 1951.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: Near the end of the film, when the C-47s are paradropping supplies to the soldiers, one of the stock footage pieces is of paratroopers jumping from planes, not supplies being dropped.

Quotes:

[as Bettis is digging a foxhole]
Holley: Let's not try to reach China this time, hey Bettis?
Bettis: Well there's no sense digging if you don't go deep.
Holley: The last one we dug one together, you went so deep that when I climbed out in the morning I got the bends.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Some of the Best (1949)

WWII ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

Just as "All Quiet on the Western Front" was emblematic of the first world war, so "Battleground" is similarly drawn out in time, wringing the desperation, danger and fear of prolonged battle. It is not quite an anti-war film, as WWII was really the Last Good War. Men had to be sacrificed, but they did for a noble cause. Where would we be if the Nazis had triumphed?

The men were surrounded, the mist obscured everything, and it was bitter cold in the French winter, near Bastogne. It was the Battle of the Bulge, where the fate of Western Europe was decided. The film showed the cameraderie and cohesion necessary to be an effective infantry company, but there was no way out till finally the weather broke and our planes came to save them.

Though utterly exhausted and sick to death, the final victory march was dramatically triumphant.