Battle Cry (1955)

 

Only the final hour of Battle Cry is about the involvement in combat of a battalion of U.S. Marines during World War II. The rest is, in part, about how they became Marines, but the film is primarily about the personal lives of half a dozen characters. It features some well-worn archetypes: the promising athlete who leaves behind his high school sweetheart, the womanizer with a girl in every city he visits, the bookish Marine who would rather read by himself that drink and party like his fellow battalion members…you get the picture. Danny Forrester (Tab Hunter, stunningly beautiful, especially when he takes his shirt off) leaves his girl behind when he joins the war effort, but he also falls for a married woman who takes him home after he gets too drunk one night in San Diego where he and the rest are undergoing their training. Andy Hookans (Aldo Ray) is a lumberjack who is quite a player, but he meets his true love in New Zealand, a war widow played by Nancy Olson (best known for Sunset Boulevard). They struggle to be together as the film keeps putting obstacles between them. John Lupton plays Marion Hotchkiss, who wants to be a writer and avoids the carousing enjoyed by many of fellow Marines. Marion is actually rather badly treated by the movie. He gets his heart broken by a woman he meets on a ferry to Coronado, a party girl named Rae (Anne Francis, who embodies the role of a B-girl before she even speaks a word in the film). He’s also ridiculed for his bookishness, getting the homophobic nickname of “Sister Mary.” The film also features a couple of Navajo “code talkers” who are often reduced to stereotypes, as is “Spanish” Joe Gomez, a troublemaker with a propensity for stealing and cheating. The ostensible leads of the film are Van Heflin, whose Major Huxley is a tough, demanding commanding officer nicknamed “High Pockets” (no, I don’t recall why), and James Whitmore, whose Sgt. Mac tries to balance the hard work of becoming and being a Marine with some sympathy for what the young men are going through. (Whitmore’s character is particularly intriguing; he’s the most sentimental of the Marines, and he’s frequently touching the other men to comfort or console them. Not the typical depiction of a tough Marine.) When the battalion actually gets involved in the war, they are initially subjected to “mopping up” after the battles at Guadalcanal and Tarawa, looking for remaining Japanese soldiers after much of the battle has ended. They are finally called into combat on Red Beach at Saipan, one of the most dangerous of locations. The battle sequences are vivid and energetic, and the entire film is beautifully shot. There is quite a contrast between the more domestic, quieter scenes and the battle scenes, but the film does a good job of building tension toward the inevitable scenes of war. The payoff is what you might expect in a Hollywood film about wartime in terms of what happens to the primary characters. Some die, some are injured, and others likely continue their service until the end of the war. What’s intriguing about the film nowadays is its consistent attention to questions of masculinity during the 1950s. Look at how Spanish Joe torments Marion, who is actually able to knock Joe down pretty easily in a fight. Whitmore and Heflin’s characters are constantly talking about what the men need and/or want, and there’s lots of conversations about relationships. Huxley even calls the troops “boys” when he’s explaining to the general that they have to prove themselves in battle; in other words, they have to show they are “men.” By the way, his troops are nicknamed “Huxley’s Harlots.” Make of that what you will.

Oscar Nomination: Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture