One Minute to Zero (1952)

 

                “One Minute to Zero” is a movie set in the early days of the Korean War.  It was the last movie that Howard Hughes produced.  He got a lot of cooperation from the Pentagon.  It was filmed in Fort Carson, Colorado with the aid of the 148^th Field Artillery.  The Pentagon almost rescinded the cooperation after actor Charles McGraw (the gladiator trainer from “Spartacus”) got into a bar fight with a soldier and unlike in “Spartacus”, McGraw won.  Hughes had to mollify the military.  Even though the brass seemingly had the high ground, Hughes successfully refused to remove the killing civilians scene.

       The movie begins in the days before the Korean War broke out.  A narrator tells us what a game bunch the South Koreans were.  Propaganda alert!  Col. Janowski (Robert Mitchum) is upset with his ROK charges and hops in to show them how to bazooka a tank.  It won’t be long before they will need that skill because the North Koreans will soon be implementing “plans made in Moscow”.  The romance arc kicks in when Janowski meets a do-gooder named Linda Day (Ann Blyth).  Before you can doubt these two will ever get together, a strafing Yak forces them into each other’s arms to the strains of “When I Fall in Love”.  Like we needed the aural cue.  The romance is shockingly not a smooth one.  They disagree about the conduct of the war.  Guess which one is the pacifist liberal.  But the movie is not just a trite romance.  It also has some combat mainly in the form of footage of American (F-80s) and Australian (P-51s) air power pummeling commies.  If you love rockets and napalm (great name for a band, by the way), this is the movie for you.  Throw in some footage of burnt bodies so you know war is not all fun.  On the ground there is a lot of hip-shooting and bazooka-plinking.  Meanwhile, the romance is proceeding with Janowski’s and Linda’s paths continuously crossing.  One of those encounters allows Robert Mitchum to sing a Japanese song which Linda follows with the English version.  Mitchum concludes by whistling “When I Fall in Love”.  Please get back to the bombing!  Back at the front, we are losing because the enemy cheats.  It seems those dastardly Reds are infiltrating refugee columns.  Why take chances, right?  Janowski is in charge of eliminating the few North Korean soldiers in disguise by slaughtering all the Orientals.  Linda has some problems with this policy since she is a bleeding heart.  This would kill the romance if this was not a movie.  The resolution is not acceptable to Amnesty International.  Back at the front, we stop retreating and start containing.  Stick around  for one of the most ridiculous deaths in war movie history.

                “One Minute to Zero” would be one of the many forgettable Korean War movies made during the war.  The Korean War has a very high ratio of forgettable movies.  What separates this dog from the pack is the civilian massacre scene.  It appears to be based on the No Gun Ri Massacre which occurred in July, 1950.  This was the chaotic early weeks of the war which were characterized by constant retreating by not only U.S. and ROK forces, but also South Korean civilians.  The crafty North Koreans infiltrated the civilian columns with disguised soldiers and this increased the chaos.  Orders came down from on high to bombard any columns approaching American positions.  On July 25, a column was diverted off the road to be searched.  The search uncovered some weapons but no enemy soldiers.  However, an air strike was called in the next day and this was followed by ground fire on the defenseless civilians.  Subsequent investigations posited between 250-300 deaths.  The incident was covered up and did not see the light of media scrutiny until 1999.  Apparently, “One Minute to Zero” flew so far under the radar that nobody asked if the scene was true.  But more incredibly, the Pentagon allowed the scene to stay in the finished movie.  I have done some reading on the symbiotic relationship of the Pentagon and Hollywood.  Producers are desperate for Pentagon cooperation and normally the military doesn’t mind providing equipment in exchange for recruiting bumps and some control over how the military is portrayed.  The goodies usually come with script consultation.  Plenty of objectionable scenes have been edited from war movies over the years because the Pentagon drew a line in the sand.  Not this time.  Although the movie gyrates laughably to justify the killing of civilians, it still bucks the trend of the military deep-sixing a scene that puts it in a negative light. 

                In spite of the recent uncovering of the No Gun Ri Massacre, “One Minute to Zero”is still not worth seeing unless you are an air bombardment addict.  It does have its fans because of that aspect.  There is lots of aerial footage and much of it involves explosions.  The movie also has a lot of ground action and some of it is archival as well.  Unfortunately, most of the action is acted out and badly.  There are some hilarious deaths and amusing hand-to-hand combat.  The cast is decent, but they slum through it.  Robert Mitchum is not at his best here, but the script does not help.  The romance is pedestrian and predictable.  The reoccurrence of the song just emphasizes this.  The dialogue is lame and the inclusion of “Walk in the Sun”-wannabe banter must have made veterans cringe.

                “One Minute to Zero” is a terrible movie.  The only reason to see it is if you want to see the depiction of a No Gun Ri type massacre.  And if you want to feel better about that sort of thing.  You do what you gotta do in the Cold War, right?

 

GRADE  =  D-