I have always found this picture fascinating, perhaps, unwittingly, almost a milestone. The other contributors on this page have got quite worked up about the historical context and accuracy of the movie. What they have to say is very interesting and I am sure very valid. I confess I was content to enjoy the film as an involving, and at times quite compelling, drama.
What has always interested me however about this movie is the acting. And the real sense of, in this one film, the baton as it were, being passed.
For about the first three quarters of the movie the acting is exactly as one would expect from almost any "stiff upper lip" Hollywood military drama of the time. Dear old Gary Cooper (getting a bit long in the tooth) hitting his one note and doing it very well. And a few old stalwarts like Ralph Bellamy dutifully plowing the same furrow. And even the younger actors content to mimic the same stodgy expository style of their elders.
And then...in comes Steiger. Fluid, fluent, naturalistic, delivering his lines twice as fast as everyone else. In short a real character, as opposed to a cut-out, hits the screen.
I guess what you could call it is new acting mets the old. Now by the time this movie had come out, "The Method" had already had lots of screen time...Clift, Brando, Shelley Winters, Steiger himself. But they were in their own movies. Well perhaps "Red River" might be another example (Wayne and Clift); but this movie is the best example of all.
When I saw the movie I knew nothing of the actual events portrayed, and I suppose, as I was watching it, I assumed that we would plod through in a totally acceptable way to Mitchell's certain triumph. And then wham! Rod blows the whole film out of the water.
In the actual story Mitchell was "beaten" by Gullion (and historians I know that statement is a travesty...but allow me my soundbite point.) In the movie Cooper is knocked cold by Steiger.
What has always interested me however about this movie is the acting. And the real sense of, in this one film, the baton as it were, being passed.
For about the first three quarters of the movie the acting is exactly as one would expect from almost any "stiff upper lip" Hollywood military drama of the time. Dear old Gary Cooper (getting a bit long in the tooth) hitting his one note and doing it very well. And a few old stalwarts like Ralph Bellamy dutifully plowing the same furrow. And even the younger actors content to mimic the same stodgy expository style of their elders.
And then...in comes Steiger. Fluid, fluent, naturalistic, delivering his lines twice as fast as everyone else. In short a real character, as opposed to a cut-out, hits the screen.
I guess what you could call it is new acting mets the old. Now by the time this movie had come out, "The Method" had already had lots of screen time...Clift, Brando, Shelley Winters, Steiger himself. But they were in their own movies. Well perhaps "Red River" might be another example (Wayne and Clift); but this movie is the best example of all.
When I saw the movie I knew nothing of the actual events portrayed, and I suppose, as I was watching it, I assumed that we would plod through in a totally acceptable way to Mitchell's certain triumph. And then wham! Rod blows the whole film out of the water.
In the actual story Mitchell was "beaten" by Gullion (and historians I know that statement is a travesty...but allow me my soundbite point.) In the movie Cooper is knocked cold by Steiger.