Thanks for the memories!

A Masterpiece!

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

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

All things considered there's nothing "wrong" with this film, but there isn't much right with it anyway.There are far more engaging films about basic training. The "DI" (1957) came out about this time and was far superior. Since then films like "The Boys of Company C" (1978), "An Officer and a Gentleman" (1982), "Full Metal Jacket" (1987) and "Tigerland" (2000) have all improved this genre. Of course nothing beats "Buck Privates" (1941) but that's an entirely different POV.As far as the time period, consider that in the same year as this film came out, "From Here to Eternity" and "Stalag 17" appeared, and these were far superior films about war.

Dull, Clichéd, and Uninteresting Boot Camp Movie with Nothing Much to say except these are America's Fighting Men and the Military is well, the Military. This is without doubt the most Boring Film Ever made about Drill Sergeants and the "Young People" They turn into Soldiers.Richard Widmark, Karl Malden, and Director Richard Brooks Can Not Save this Conservative Piece of Propaganda and elevate it beyond the Mundane. The Soldiers mostly Overact, especially Russ Tamblyn, and the Film is made in such a Pedestrian way that as Entertainment it Fails Miserably.Unlike the WWII Films of the Forties, This one, Ironically like the Korean Conflict, comes Off as Half Hearted, listless, and Uncommitted. It is Truly one of the most Unimpressive Movies ever made about the Military, Soldiers, or War. A Failure from Frame One.Note…The Movie does reflect the newly implemented integration of the Army and gives a Black Actor a prominent Role.

In reviewing this film I can only go by my experiences as a weekend warrior doing my basic training in July, August, and September of 1971 in that garden spot of the earth, Fort Polk, Louisiana. Take the High Ground was not anything like I remember basic training.But one has to remember at the time this was post Korea which ended in a stalemate, but it was a conventional war as we knew them. It was not Vietnam, a jungle guerrilla war where we kept pouring draftees into an endless pit. The draft at that time was an unwelcome, but accepted as still necessary for the country's defense.Richard Widmark is a veteran of Korea now assigned state side to train the troops to go overseas. The film is about one of his training cycles and the men of the platoon he has to train. They're the usual kind you would find in just about any war film from the previous decade. One thing I will praise Take The High Ground for is the fact that MGM recognized our army was now an integrated one with the presence of William Hazard as a black recruit in the platoon. It was in keeping with the spirit of the times which were a changing.But I will say that a recruit like Russ Tamblyn would have been cured of his smart mouth from day one. Richard Widmark would have not risked death or becoming a eunuch in order to give Jerome Courtland confidence with a weapon. And no way would have he worried so much about Robert Arthur deserting. He's have just let the MPs deal with him.Of course being shot in and around Fort Bliss and El Paso, Texas did give Take the High Ground good authenticity. But view it as an army recruiting film and you can certainly understand why the government so eagerly gave cooperation back in the day.I do remember the drill sergeants having their little conflicts which you could pick up on when you weren't worried about them getting on your case for something which was 95% of the time. But there ain't no way that Karl Malden would have slugged Widmark out in the open during training in front of several witnesses among the recruits. Both would have realized that would have undermined authority, something the military just doesn't let happen.I wish I could have said something better about Take The High Ground because I certainly like its talented cast, it's talented director Richard Brooks, even the silly theme by Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington, fresh from their Oscar a year before for High Noon. The film actually got an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay and story by Millard Kaufman. It must have been for Kaufman's vivid imagination.

The 1957 Jack Webb classic, "The D.I." bears a close relationship to "Take the High Ground," from its general theme to the presence of an inept recruit, to the main character's romance with a young woman who lives close to the base.In the Jack Webb (Marine) version, Gunnery Sergeant Jim Moore (Webb) takes on a platoon with the usual selection of raw recruits, but one who is particularly troublesome. In the Richard Widmark (Army) version, the same thing happens, with a troublesome and troubled recruit. In both versions, the recruit makes an attempt to go over the wall, and in both versions, the tough but compassionate training sergeant stops the escape and molds the recruit into shape.In both versions, the love interest is a woman who has been emotionally scarred by a former romance with a serviceman who had been killed in combat.In both versions, there is a fellow training sergeant that frustrates and annoys the main character into a showdown fistfight.At the end of both movies, the cast is reprised, with their names. The only difference is that in the MGM version (Take the High Ground), the entire platoon are actors. In the Mark VII version (The D.I.), the platoon was played by real Marines. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~' For those unfamiliar with military lingo, "boot camp" is generally used to refer to Navy recruit training (or Marine training), whereas the Army uses the term "Basic Training." In a similar vein, the Navy refers to combat simulation encampments as "maneuvers," whereas the Army uses the term "bivouac."Both movies are excellent films.