A Walk in the Sun
In the 1943 invasion of Italy, one American platoon lands, digs in, then makes its way inland to attempt to take a fortified farmhouse, as tension and casualties mount.
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- Cast：
- Dana Andrews , Richard Conte , George Tyne , John Ireland , Lloyd Bridges , Sterling Holloway , Norman Lloyd
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Reviews
I love this movie so much
Strong and Moving!
As Good As It Gets
I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.
A Walk in the Sun lacks intensity of Lewis Milestone's masterpiece All Quiet on the Western Front. In fact there is too much jaw jaw as the platoon soldiers chat among each other while walking.A platoon lands in Italy with the object to take a Nazi held farmhouse, their lieutenant is injured and it is up to the platoon's sergeants to lead them further and achieve their aims.This is an unsentimental look at the life of the infantrymen, we get to learn about their background and what makes them tick. The trouble is it's all a bit dull. The film has a solid cast but I felt they could had done with more snappier and profound dialogue.
Two things weight heavily on how and why this movie disappoints all but the hardcore cinephile now: supposedly set in Italy it was filmed entirely in Calabasas, Los Angeles. And the release date of December 1945. When hundreds of thousands, if not millions of returned servicemen would still be waking up screaming in the night pursued by the horrors of war; seeing men blown to pieces all around them, the mindless destruction and carnage impossible to rid from their minds.Even if it were conceived then, making and releasing 'Saving Private Ryan' type war film at that time would have made audiences sick in the cinemas or run screaming into the street.'Action' then is replaced by dialogue of realism of the interminable tense periods of 'waiting' for war in a world of dangerous unknowns.70 years on the generations whose greatest emotional tension is sitting in traffic jams, and who HAVE seen it all before just can't relate to the stage-play pace of this kind of film making anymore. And the story would be much better appreciated if read as a screenplay.
This rotten tomato got the axe at the 26 minute mark ... when some bozo rattles off about the 1955 battle of Tibet for the 3rd time (movie takes place in 43). This is seriously one of the worst WW2 films I have seen ... and I have seen many! On the boring meter it sits atop with the French film "A Man Escaped" ... which was at least artistic.Seriously 90% of the film is idle chatter and that does not make for a good film. More so you can tell that very little money was spent on the film ... it is borderline amateur. Finally the singing narration ... that may have been a good idea in 1945 but it torpedoes in 2015.I could tell this film would get the gong within the first 5 minutes ... yet I tried to hang in there ... thinking it may pull up from the dive ... it did not. Don't waste your time.POST: I cannot believe our boys were such morons as the men portrayed in this film were. This was my parents generation and very few were this simple.
Despite the Milestone pedigree, the movie doesn't wear well. Except for a couple of touchingly unusual scenes, the war story plays more like a series of WWII clichés. The real problem is that the narrative never really conveys the emotional trauma of war. Yes, men we like are killed, but we're not made to feel the loss. Instead the deaths never make the emotional jump from screenplay to gut-level. In fact, the whole movie seems oddly detached from the horrors of war—it's like Milestone doesn't really engage with the material, filming instead in an impersonal manner (Contrast with the intensity of All Quiet on the Western Front {1930}).However, giving the ordinarily clownish Sterling Holloway (McWilliams) a straight role as the ill-fated medic proved a daring stroke of inspiration. The medic's brave little act when contrasted with Holloway's usual movie role, gives his death an added dimension. Also, Sergeant Porter's (Rudley) combat breakdown adds a thoughtfully realistic note as we find out that not all war wounds are physical. However, whoever decided wisecracking Romano (Conte) should wisecrack in every other line of dialog ruined the whole idea. The constant badinage does get tiresome, almost mocking the whole idea of serious combat. As most WWII movies knew, a little of that cocky behavior goes a long way in life or death situations.Anyway, the movie now looks to me like just another war programmer from the period, minus the many fine qualities one might expect from its pedigree.(In passing, note that not a single female appears anywhere during the two hour runtime.)
