Fixed Bayonets

Not your typical star-studded or star-spangled war film, cult-fave director Samuel Fuller's Fixed Bayonets is a viscerally thrilling Korean War drama of one platoon's trial, and one corporal's baptism, under fire. Morale is high but the ammo is low for an American division hunkered down in the mountains of Korea. Certain massacre awaits if they retreat. To give "15,000 men a break," 48 "of our toughest combat men" are selected to stay behind and trick the "commies" into thinking the entire division is in place while the others escape safely across a river. Fixed Bayonets is raw and brutal in the best Fuller tradition. The backgrounds are obvious fakes, and the platoon members sport the usual war movie nicknames like Whitey, Rock, Jonesy, and "Mr. Belvedere" (he's the resident know-it-all). But all else has the authentic ring of reportage, as in a powerful scene when the men cluster together to rub their feet to ward off frostbite. Richard Basehart stars as Denno, who can "take an order, but can't give one" until his three superiors are knocked off one by one, leaving him in command. This rueful exchange--"They told me this was going to be a police action." "Why didn't they send the cops?"--is as close as Fuller gets to geopolitics. For war-movie buffs, he does deliver pounding and tense action sequences. In one harrowing scene, a medic must navigate a minefield to try and rescue a wounded sergeant and retrieve the only map to the field.. But he is resolutely unsentimental and more interested in the ravaged, human face of war. These are faces you will not soon forget (one of them, reportedly, belongs to James Dean, but this film is so gripping, one is hard-pressed to make the effort to try to spot him). --Donald Liebenson

• Retreat Hell
• Merrill's Marauders (DVD)
• Go for Broke
• Darby's Rangers
• Guadalcanal Diary
• Battle of the Bulge (DVD)
• Hell is for Heroes
• Sahara
• War, 10-Movie Collection: The Eagle and The Hawk / The Last Outpost / Bengal Brigad / Jet Pilot / Ulzana's Raid / To Hell and Back / In Enemy Country / Raid on Rommel / Battle Hymn / Wake Island(Packaging may vary)
• Gung Ho!