FORGOTTEN GEM? Red Ball Express (1952)

 

                        After the breakout from Normandy, Eisenhower’s forces ran into a logistics problem.  For instance, Gen. Patton’s Third Army was not getting enough gas to sustain its momentum.  The solution was to rush supplies to the front via trucks.  This effort became known as the Red Ball Express.  It began on August 25, 1944 and lasted 83 days.  At its peak almost 6,000 vehicles were involved, transporting 12,500 tons of gas per day up to 400 miles one way.  It came to an end after the port of Antwerp was open for business.  The press played up the story, so a 1950’s black and white drive-in flick was a given.  It was directed by Budd Boetticher who was famous for his westerns.  He had Maj. Gen. Frank Ross as his technical adviser.  Ross had been in charge of the operation.  He probably shook his head a lot on the set.  Sidney Poitier was making his third film and it boosted his career.  He replaced James Edwards who had to drop out when he refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. 

                        The movie opens with background about the military situation.  (Something viewers at the time did not need, but is absolutely needed today.)  Gen. Gordon (clearly meant to be Patton) demands gas!  A supply guy puts it succinctly:  “War is an inch worm, the head has to stop while the tail catches up.”  The plan is to designate a private road for the trucks to use to carry jerricans and other supplies to the front.  The trucks will be driven by “goldbricks, troublemakers, and misfits”.  Lt. Campbell (Jeff Chandler) is in charge of one of these dysfunctional units.  There are soap opera elements.  For instance, Campbell has a past with Sgt. Kalek (Alex Nichol) who blames him for the death of his brother.  The mixing of African-American soldiers with whites causes friction.  Corporal Robertson (Poitier) and Pvt. Wilson (O’Brian) get into a fight to prove this and to initiate a bonding arc.  Another arc has Campbell earning the respect of his African-American drivers.  And the unit gaining the respect of tankers.  There is a lot of respect-gaining in this movie.  In spite of all this infighting, the unit still has time to fight the Germans.  The movie builds to a special mission where the truckers have to deliver fuel to a (I mean the) cut-off tank unit.  It’s all much more exciting than the actual problems the unit went through.  Uncinematic stuff like maintenance and lack of sleep.  And lack of encounters with the enemy.   Boring!

                        The Red Ball Express deserved a minor motion picture in the 1950’s.  But let’s face it, we’re not talking about the Devil’s Brigade here.  The unit was a nice story, but driving trucks over muddy French roads is hardly the stuff of entertaining cinema.  So how do you get fannies in the seats?  Hollywood enhancement, of course.  Put the men at each other’s throats.  Anchor it with a major star who has to deal with this bull shit.  Add a racial dynamic.  For poster purposes, the movie has some donut dollies (“real American dolls”) and a French girl that Partridge (Charles Drake) goes AWOL to see.  Top it off with a B-movie set piece that is ridiculous, but manages to wed fire with explosions and gunfire.

                        The movie is inconsequential, but it’s not a toss-off.  The cast is fine with some familiar faces, if you are a Baby Boomer.  For Baby Boomer war movie lovers, it is a comfortable watch.  You won’t have to do any heavy-lifting mentally.  You’ll see nothing you haven’t seen before.  It is all predictable and cliché-ridden (respect and redemption).  All of the characters are stereotypes.  The gruff, but fair commander.  The soldier with a grudge against him.  The activist black.  The ladies’ man.  It is exactly what you would expect from a 1950’s homage to the Red Ball Express.  You know you are not getting a history lesson.  It does show some of the dangers, but tritely.  Those dangers did not include driving through burning cities and the truckers were not a motley crew.  In fact, 75% of the truckers were African-Americans who were good at what they did.  Unwisely, the movie chose to emphasize the integrated nature of the unit instead of treating it as a black unit.  Clearly, that would be different if the movie was remade.  It is also highly unlikely that a remake would feature the song “Lift That Load” four times.

                        I was going to conclude this review with the recommendation that you watch a good documentary on the Red Ball Express instead of this movie.  However, when I went to YouTube, the doc I found is entitled “Rolling to the Rhine” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKRNYKoIEj0).  It is typical propaganda fluff, but certainly more accurate than the movie.  Not a shot is fired in the documentary.  It’s mostly trucks driving down roads or trucks being repaired.  Only black truckers are shown.  So choose between the romanticized truth and the fictionalized truth.

GRADE  =  C-