Battleground (1949)

I will admit that I have never been a huge fan of war movies. I've seen quite a few of them over the years, but too many of them seem to fall back on the cliches of soldiers bonding in the trenches and lots of battle sequences. Imagine my surprise then to watch a movie about just that and enjoy and admire it. Battleground was a nominee in 1949 for Best Picture, and although it does have several battle scenes and much of it is about the bonds between the men, I still had to acknowledge just how all that can still be fascinating if handled by the right people.

The story concerns a group of soldiers who are stuck in Bastogne, France, during the last winter of World War II. They're trapped there without much ammunition or supplies because the thick December fog is keeping the airplanes from dropping them any help. Meanwhile, the Battle of the Bulge, one of the key battles of the war, is happening all around them. After a short period of time in Bastogne itself, the soldiers are relocated to the forests outside town, where they dig holes and take turns on guard duty and talk and occasionally encounter German soldiers. It's during those moments of talking that you learn the most about these men and their lives. Battleground is not a sentimental movie, really, but it is inspirational. I watched it over Memorial Day weekend, and it's a fitting tribute to the men who served during that war and all of the others that this country has been involved in.

The cast includes such notables as Van Johnson, a young James Whitmore, John Hodiak, and lots of others. However, I was most touched by Ricardo Montalban's performance as Rodrigues. If you only know Montalban from his years on Fantasy Island, you have probably underestimated just how good he was. Here he tells stories about baseball and his parents, both seemingly mundane topics, but there's such a sense of joy when he talks about his life back home in the United States. And his close friendship with George Murphy's "Pop" rings true; they do seem to care about each other.

I suppose it is accurate that most war movies are really anti-war movies. The human cost of war is made all too clear in a film like Battleground. The director, William Wellman, was known for his many films about tough men and tough circumstances. Here he showcases men facing perhaps the most difficult situation of all, the constant possibility of their own deaths, and yet he still manages to make you accept and support what these men go through. Try, for example, to watch the last sequence, in particular, without feeling a sense of pride in the armed services.

Oscar Wins: Cinematography (Black and White) and Story and Screenplay

Other Oscar Nominations: Picture, Director, Supporting Actor (Whitmore), and Film Editing