Harry
Brown was a poet. His first book was a
156 page poem entitled “The Poem of Bunker Hill”. In January, 1941, he enlisted in the Army
Corps of Engineers. He did not make it
overseas as he was stationed at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. In 1942, he joined Yank magazine. In 1944, he wrote the book. The book was a hit with readers and critics,
but it got engulfed by the spate of epic war novels like Norman Mailer’s “The
Naked and the Dead” and is largely forgotten today. The movie germinated when
Burgess Meredith (the narrator in the film) encouraged producer Samuel Bronston
to turn it into a movie. Bronston ran
into financial difficulties and the project fell to Lewis Milestone. Milestone convinced Brown to move to
Hollywood and become a screenwriter. He
did not write the screenplay for the movie.
Robert Rossen, who later wrote “All the King’s Men”, was the
screenwriter. As we will see, Rossen did
not have to work hard on “A Walk in the Sun”.
Brown had a productive career as a screenwriter. He wrote “Sands of Iwo Jima” and “Eight Iron
Men” (based on his play).
The
novel is the opposite of a “big” war novel.
It covers only half a day in the war.
A platoon lands at Salerno in Italy and has the mission to assault a
farm house that is several miles inland.
It follows the heterogenous group as it moves down a road to its
objective. The men discuss various
topics and evidence the black humor,
griping, and wistfulness typical of G.I.’s.
They lose their commanding officer early and his replacement cracks due to
combat fatigue (what we today call “post-traumatic stress disorder”). They carry on because they have a job to
do. They are not patriots. There is a limited amount of action leading
up to the attack on the farm house and a bridge.
Lewis
Milestone brought in Colonel Thomas Drake as technical adviser for the
film. Drake had been taken captive at
Kasserine Pass and was exchanged due to ill health. He did not have a lot of advising to do as
the story is a simple one. The Army did
request that the nonuse of bazookas against the farm house be explained by having
the bazooka team use up their ammunition (off screen). Milestone ignored the request that a scene be
added where the mission is outlined for the platoon. He felt the objective was simply a means to
the march.
I
would have liked to have Robert Rossen’s job.
The screenplay is almost exactly like the book. He borrowed the dialogue almost
verbatim. I could find little that the
men say that they didn’t say in the novel.
To his credit, Rossen was smart enough to realize the dialogue could not
be improved on. Brown, although he
apparently did not have first-hand experience with combat infantry, had a way
with soldier banter. The book is heavily
dialogue-oriented and it works because the interchanges between the soldiers are
cracking. Much of it is humorous. But the movie is not just a stroll in the
Italian countryside with soldiers yammering away. It explores several themes.
One
of the themes is comradeship. The
platoon is from the Texas Division, but the men are a cross-section of the
nation (including Brooklyn, of course).
They were clearly thrown together by the war and would not have been
comrades otherwise. The dialogue
indicates how these veterans of North Africa have evolved their social dynamic,
which has a twinge of dysfunction in it.
The love is there, but it can’t be stated. This means the dialogue could have come from
any American war, up until Vietnam.
Watch and listen to “Hamburger Hill” and you will see the difference
between G.I.’s and grunts. And the
difference between all previous American wars and Vietnam. It also explores leadership, in a realistic
way. The green lieutenant dies in a
greenish way. He is replaced by Sergeant
Porter, who is clearly in over his head.
A veteran who has been with the platoon for a while, he should be a good
leader, but his wits have been dulled by too much war. Tyne (Dana Andrews in the movie) reluctantly
steps up to take command when Porter inevitably cracks. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. Tyne makes mistakes reflective of the Army’s
tactical doctrine. The men follow him
because they respect him and someone has to lead. An unusual theme for a movie made in the
1940s is combat fatigue. Porter suffers
from a classic case of it. He has been
through so much that he reaches his breaking point. Brown laconically introduces him by saying
that “he has a lot on his mind”. Brown conforms to the theory that every WWII
infantryman had a certain breaking point directly related to time in
combat. He has the other soldiers
showing apathy more than sympathy, but they are not critical of Porter
either. They understand, but they don’t
condone. None take the Patton approach. There is relief that it doesn’t happen in the
middle of a fight.
There
are slight differences between the book and the movie. While the book expands on the characters’
thoughts, Rossen was able to translate some of those thoughts into
dialogue. You still will learn more
about the characters from reading the book, but not as much as you would
think. One improvement Rossen makes is
with Brown’s strange decision to make Tyne a corporal. This means Tyne is advanced over the
competent Sgt. Ward (Lloyd Bridges). In
the book, Ward has no problem with this, but it’s an oddly unrealistic aspect
of the novel. Windy Craven (John
Ireland) is bumped up to a major character in the movie. He serves as a secondary narrator as he
composes letters in his head. Craven
does not appear in the book until page 142.
It was a good decision by Rossen, but an odd one considering this was
Ireland’s first film and clearly he did not have the clout to enhance his role. The ending in the book takes a minimalist
approach. There are no details about the
taking of the house or the blowing of the bridge (which in the book is more
realistically a pontoon bridge). Tyne,
not Windy, gets the last words: “It was
so easy. It is so terribly easy.”
Normally,
I find that war movies improve upon the novels they are based upon. The screenwriter has the luxury of having the
blueprint for the house and then he can make improvements. In this case, the movie is essentially the
novel. That is a good thing because the
novel is one of the great war novels and was easily adapted to a movie. For people who are more visual than
print-oriented, the movie is an outstanding substitute for reading the book.
The ensemble cast brings the characters to life perfectly. The action is well-done. I actually used the farm house scenario in my
Military History class. Spoiler
alert: Tyne could have handled it
better. One area where the book is
superior is it does not have any ballads in it.
The movie has five sappy songs!
(Down from twelve due to preview audiences vomiting.) There is another difference from “Hamburger
Hill”, by the way.
BOOK = A
MOVIE = A
Here are some of my favorite passages
from the book:
There is
something about a dead man’s face that cannot be explained. Something has gone from its features. It’s as though life lent an aura, a glow,
that unseen, could yet be perceived through some unknown sense.
It was odd
how many people you meet in the Army who crossed your path for perhaps only a
few seconds and then went on , never to be seen again.
When a man
is uncomfortable, through either heat or cold, he finds it hard to think
consecutively. He is too conscious of
his ever-present discomfort. The body,
as always, thwarts the mind.
Every man …
had his own thoughts as he walked along, and they hovered unseen over the
little group, an indefinable armor, a protection against fate, an
indestructible essence.
The men were
not even interested in Tinker’s hand, poised above the wall. They had seen such things before. It was very much like going to a bad movie
for the second time. It was wonderful
what could bore them after a year in battle.
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