Undescribable Perfection

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I watched this movie on commercial late-night TV when I was 17 (in 1969). I am sure I then missed most of what was there to be gleaned, however, the soundtrack was compelling.The movie is something of a preview of coming events (not unlike "The Sand Pebbles") with respect to our involvement in Vietnam. I cannot understand how intelligent people could overlook the problems occasioned by fighting a war in a culture so different from our own.The grist of the movie is how power impacts people and that it is not likely that the first time it is granted, the recipient will be ready. I thought Stewart did an excellent job of articulating his conflict, and regrets, over his use of power, and the female lead's character seemed a little unsympathetic to a man who was genuinely conflicted.The movie leaves me with a trace of melancholy. In 1960, when it was released, there was still time to avoid the all but unfathomable foreign policy blunders of the late '60s. Vietnam impacted the thinking of much of the baby boom generation, and not for the better. It leaves me thinking that the war was fought mostly to satisfy the Joint Chiefs (after Cuba was off limits) and to generate huge amounts of cash for the defense industry.

It's World War II in China. The Japanese are advancing and the Chinese and a handful of Americans are retreated. Among the Americans is James Stewart, an army engineer, and half a dozen of his men. Their task, should they choose to accept it, which of course they do, is to retreat to an Allied base a hundred or so miles away, blowing up the bridges after they cross them. The roads are choked with civilian refugees, and along the way, Stewart and his trucks are compelled to pick up a Chinese colonel and a young widow as passengers.The Chinese colonel is played by Frank Silvera with a mustache. This guy deserves a decoration just for the number of different ethnic types he's played. He was a genetic chameleon. In real life, he was of mixed background, born in Jamaica, but he found a niche in Hollywood's go-anywhere ethnic roles. The young widow is Lisa Lu, born in Beijing. I don't mean to cast aspersions on her in any way. She's attractive and has the precise enunciation that sounds as if it belongs to a hostess of a late-night FM station that plays nothing but chamber music. If she says something like "immediate departure" she observes the original juncture and pronounces both the "t" and the following "d," whereas when Americans make the same utterance it comes out "immediadepature." But I must say, she isn't Zhang Ziyi, let alone Gong Li, with whom I am deeply in love. I can't understand why she doesn't respond to my many proposals of marriage but I suppose it's her loss. Still, if you have to travel over rough country, pursued by a dangerous enemy, Lisa Lu will be a serviceable traveling companion.There are some welcome comic moment interpolated. Morgan and Stewart are arguing over some decision. Stewart sternly reminds Morgan that he, Stewart, is in command. "Oh, I understand. In this war your either a big wheel or a slob. I'm a slob too." "Come of it, Mike; you know I couldn't run this outfit without you." "Oh, that's because I'm a HELPFUL slob." "Well, what do you suggest." "I don't know, major, slobs don't have any brains." Something like that. It's actually kind of amusing in context.Stewart's major is a pretty abrasive and instrumental customer. He's all business, impatient with the customs of the Chinese. He makes a report to a colonel at a way station and they insist he stay for tea and lunch, while he fidgets anxiously, dying to get under way. It doesn't help that Stewart's jeep and four trucks run into some of the usual problems during this kind of journey -- a bridge must be blown, leaving hundreds of poor Chinese on the other side; a merchant's dilapidated trucks blocks the road and must be pushed off the cliff; one of the men is seriously ill and there is neither medicine nor doctor around.Stewart's men, by the way, include some of the more familiar and reliable supporting actors in the business: Mike Kellin, James Best, Rudy Bond, Glenn Corbett, and Henry "Harry" Morgan, who should make up his mind about his name. The soldier who gets sick can't act. The movie is to be applauded for not turning the Chinese into altruistic saints, a pattern that recurs in movies where soldiers have to deal with alien civilians. Corbett, the nice guy, the most sympathetic of the enlisted men, carries some extra food out to the refugees. The crowd turns savage and they beat him to death and run off with the loot. Later, one of the trucks is ambushed and several men killed, and Stewart exacts an awesome revenge.It costs Stewart because he's grown fond of Luci Lu, as who wouldn't. He doesn't get the girl. She resents his killing of Chinese and they part before the end of the road is reached. He makes some plea about using "power" that sounds like mumbo jumbo. There are some nice special effects for those who enjoy seeing things blown up big time.It's an adult movie. The relationships between the Americans and the Chinese are faithfully sketched in. The novel was written by Teddy White ("The Making of the President....") who had learned Chinese at Harvard and spent time there during the war. The political system, as we see it, and in real historical fact, was a chaotic collage of conflicting loyalties. Two major forces were trying to unify a huge country that was ruled by local warlords. The two forces were the Nationalists under Chiang Kai Sheck and the Communists under Mao Dz Dung. Both were fighting the Japanese and both were corrupt dictators manqué. Chiang was known for charging the Americans to let them build air bases in China in order to help him, Chiang, fight the Japanese. There were many deserters from both camps and bandits who owed allegiance to no party. And there we were, in the middle of all of it, just as we are today, as I write this.

Major Baldwin (Stewart) has his first command in East China when he is put in charge of a demolition squad with orders to evacuate once a base has been destroyed to prevent its capture by the advancing Japanese. Along the way he discovers the power associated with command and the abuse temptation offers along with such power. He also encounters some unexpected romance when the widow of a Chinese general in need of evacuation joins his squad.Unfortunately, as the group never comes into contact with the Japanese and is never in serious danger, we don't feel a lot of tension. Whatever threat there is comes from the Chinese themselves, from mobs of starving peasants to bands of wayward deserting marauders.The most interesting feature of the film deals with the difference of customs. The pomp and ceremony important to Chinese is alien to the Americans just wanting to get down to the business at hand. Looking from different points of view, each side views the other as somewhat barbarous and inhumane and as a result never quite reach the level of friendship each would have.Although Jerome Morass provides a spirited music score, it doesn't quite fit in with the action, or rather the lack of it. With an exception or two, the events on the screen just never generate much pathos, resulting in a not so poignant anti-war film.Stewart, as always, is worth watching, Lisa Lu has charm, and Harry Morgan gives a preview of what would become his Colonel Potter M*A*S*H* character.

The Mountain Road is the story of an American Enginers destroying military stockpile ahead of a Japanese advance in late World War II. The corrupted Chinese Warlords refused to equip their men for the fight against the Japaneses and wanted to hoard so they could profit from the sale of gasoline and military supplies. One of the themes of the movie is the cultural clash between Americans and Chineses. One of the major difference between the two was the value of human life. I wish that this movie was available on DVD or VHS tape as I would like to have it for my collection. It is well worth while seeing to see one aspect of World War II in China.