Comedies about war are difficult to bring off and to my mind this one is not a success. It lacks a hero. In fact, in the Kodascope cutdown it has no straight guy at all. Richard Arlen is on-screen for less than ten seconds. Fortunately, the movie does have comedian Tom Kennedy to play against Wallace Beery and Raymond Hatton, and Tom does well. Yet despite the size of his role and its crucial importance, Kennedy is billed seventh, would you believe? The players do number a straight girl in Mary Brian, but she is an unsympathetic character, and she is not in the movie all that much anyway. Although produced on quite a generous budget, the movie lacks focus – at least in its Kodascope cutdown version which is now available on a very good Grapevine DVD.
Review of Behind the Front
