"BATTLEGROUND" has the right feel in most ways. The constant pictures of limping soldiers with their feet wrapped in makeshift boot warmers, the generally haggard and scruffy look of the men, the old woman foraging for food at the trash can, even the white parkas pilfered from German dead remind us of the constant struggles the soldiers and citizens at Bastogne faced in December of 1944. And that doesn't even take into account the thousands of guys waiting in the woods to kill you. But every WWII movie has the combat scenes. It's these non-combat scenes that make BATTLEGROUND a special movie. Its ambiance is as thick as the fog that enveloped Bastogne.
My one gripe with most WWII movies made before THE BIG RED ONE is the age of the actors playing the combatants. Look at it this way, of the six servicemen who raised the flag at Iwo Jima, Mike Strank was the "old man." He was 24. I'm not sure if it was Hollywood's desire to get name stars and character actors with experience, or reluctance to display the horrible truth that most of the combatants were only a few years older than the kids roaming the halls of the local high school.
***Spoiler section*** I loved...
when Holley (Van Johnson) attempted to flee a battle and people followed him into perfect ambush position.
The boots at the edge of the foxhole.
The soldier wordlessly gathering the propaganda leaflets and our certainty of what he was heading into the woods to use them for.
Richard Jaekel, fighting to figure out a way out of combat to his very last breath. There was no safe harbor in Bastogne.
The wounded and their nurse in terror as the shells rained down around the barn.
The relative accuracy of the discussion between the colonel and the German envoy. Every account I've read has the German asking if MCAuliffe's response of "NUTS!" is "negative" or "positive." and the Americans telling him it is decidedly negative.
My one gripe with most WWII movies made before THE BIG RED ONE is the age of the actors playing the combatants. Look at it this way, of the six servicemen who raised the flag at Iwo Jima, Mike Strank was the "old man." He was 24. I'm not sure if it was Hollywood's desire to get name stars and character actors with experience, or reluctance to display the horrible truth that most of the combatants were only a few years older than the kids roaming the halls of the local high school.
***Spoiler section*** I loved...
when Holley (Van Johnson) attempted to flee a battle and people followed him into perfect ambush position.
The boots at the edge of the foxhole.
The soldier wordlessly gathering the propaganda leaflets and our certainty of what he was heading into the woods to use them for.
Richard Jaekel, fighting to figure out a way out of combat to his very last breath. There was no safe harbor in Bastogne.
The wounded and their nurse in terror as the shells rained down around the barn.
The relative accuracy of the discussion between the colonel and the German envoy. Every account I've read has the German asking if MCAuliffe's response of "NUTS!" is "negative" or "positive." and the Americans telling him it is decidedly negative.