Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Bereamic Awesome Movie

Roman Sampson One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

mark.waltz While there are films made about the Korean war in the 1950's, their numbers are small compared to the second world war. This film deals not only with the small troop stranded in snowy mountains but the knowledge that the enemy is possibly just yards away. With sergeant Sidney Poitier in charge under the orders of lieutenant Alan Ladd, the troop deals with their feelings about being given orders by a black man. Poitier takes no guff, shows his own anger, yet his motive is pure and simple: keep his men alive, racist or not, and kill the enemy. James Darren and Glenn Corbett are among the other troop members, some of whom look up to Poitier as a great leader. This is at its most tense when it deals with the silence, all the young men knowing that at any moment the enemy could appear out of nowhere. There are some very gruesome moments, one involving a hostage situation and another involving a Korean tank set on fire. The most racist of the troop tries to rape a Korean girl and is stopped by Poitier, leading to both of their hatreds to emerge. Basically, this is about survival and the ugliness of a war mostly forgotten outside advanced history classes, the movie and TV show "M.A.S.H.", and most notably, the political thriller "The Manchurian Candidate". Perhaps with tensions rising between North Korea and much of the world, films like this will start to be remembered and the history books will be picked up a bit more. A hokey propaganda style ending is silly, but the film makes its point.

Martin Bradley "All the Young Men" is a Korean war movie that finds an aging Alan Ladd and an up-and-coming Sidney Poitier leading a platoon of soldiers into a snow-bound Korean pass where they have to hold a farm-house against all the odds. It's not a bad film, just a rather formulaic one full of stock characters yet it's even quite exciting at times. The writer/producer/director was Hal Bartlett, a B-Movie stalwart of the period who liked to tackle 'difficult' issues, a kind of poor man's Sam Fuller, (Poitier's presence here ensures racism rears its ugly head). The first-rate black and white photography was by Daniel L Fapp who was to win the Oscar a year later for his work on "West Side Story".

sol1218 ***SPOILERS*** Picked off by a Communist Chinese sniper USMC Let. Earl Toland, Charles Quinlivan, as he's about to go under turns over command of his squad to the green and inexperienced in leading men into combat Sgt. Eddie Towler,Sidney Poitier. The thing that ticks off the men that Sgt. Towers is now in charge of is not that he's green and inexperienced but that he's black! And it's now up to Sgt. Towers, who didn't want the job anyway, to lead them out of the wilderness, or Communist North Korea, and across the 38th parallel before the Chinese Communist and their North Korean allies make mince meat out of all of them!Under Sgt. Towers' command and leadership the men in his unit capture a key position, a farm house, that's the only place where a battalion of some 1,000 retreating US Marines can make it to safety and link up with UN forces to the south preventing them from being massacred by the Communist forces. It's that position that Sgt. Towers is determined to hold to the last man grenade and round of ammunition even if he ends up being killed by one of his fellow Marines in doing it!As the Communist Chinese key in on Sgt. Towers position tensions beings to build up between him an the Marines under his command. Sgt. Kincaid, Alan Ladd, who felt that he being in the Corps for 11 years was passed over in favor of Sgt. Towers never lets him forget about it. Still Kincaid knows that by bickering with each other will only give the surrounding Communist Chinese the advantage in overrunning the farm house and reluctantly takes orders from him. It's the racist Pvt. Bracken, Paul Richards, who never lets up in letting Sgt. Towers know where to stay in his place ,the back of the bus or squad, that really gets under Sgt.Towers' black skin.The both racist as well as horny Pvt. Bracken really goes over the top when after getting good and drunk on Korean home made wine attempts to rape Eurasian, half French and half Oriental, woman of the house Maya, Ann Maria Lynch. It's then that Sgt. Towers who tried to tolerate him, for the both good and safety of the Marine unit, lost his cool and not only worked Bracken over but almost has him shot for undisciplined and un-US Marine Corps conduct! The Communist Chinese using human wave assault tactics slowly ground down the Marines defending the farmhouse and it's now up to Sgt. Towers to make the faithful decision to either abundant the farm house and leave the 1,000 US Marines who need it to brake through commie lines to their fate or die defending it!The Chinese Communists bringing in their big guns, tanks and amour units, for a final breakthrough has both Sgt. Towers and Kincaid try to disable the lead tank with Molotov cocktails, they by then ran out of grenades, with Kincaid ending up almost roasted alive in the fighting! Needing an immediate blood transfusion as well as leg amputation to save his life Kincaid is saved by both the skillful surgery, his in fact first amputation, of medic Pvt. Wade, Glenn Corbett, and Sgt. Towers who donated at least three pints of blood-O positive-to keep Kincaid from going under just like Let. Toland did earlier in the movie.***SPOILERS*** With what now looked like the end for Sgt. Towers and his Marines with the Chinese Communist troops making a major assault on the farm house the US Calvary or USAF finally comes to their rescue. As the US Air Force saber jets start blasting the Chinese Reds to bits an elated Sgt. Towers going along with them, as ground support, picks them off one by one, sniper style, with his sub-machine-gun as they try to run for cover! P.S The movie also has the then Heavyweight Champion of the World Ingemar Johansson as recently naturalized American citizen and Swedish immigrant GI Torgil. Despite his being the champ in real life Johansson instead of fighting was seen in the film mostly singing Swedish folk songs to keep the men in his Marine unit entertained!

lorenellroy This movie benefits from some striking monochrome photography which is particularly well in evidence during its opening scenes ;these show a US patrol proceeding through snow encrusted mountains when it comes under attack from a Communist force .In the resulting battle the platoon leader is killed and hands over authority to the unit's sole black soldier (effectively played by Sidney Poitier)rather than to its most experienced member ,Kincaid (Alan Ladd),to whom the men have always looked up . Thus racial tension and bitterness are added to the already fraught situation as the troop must find a place to make a stand against superior numbers while awaiting reinforcements .There is a difference of opinion over strategy between Ladd and Poitier and other tensions between patrol members who include a Native American ,a wisecracking New Yorker ( Mort Sahl) and a callow youth played by James Darren who also contributes a forgettable song This is no better or worse than many another "patrol"movie with its assemblage of stock figures and seems to have been assembled with an eye to the widest demographic-Old Hollywood in Ladd , a rising newcomer in Poitier and a pop star(Darren ) for the youth market.Even the race angle was not new having featured in Home of The Brave over a decade previouslyGood matinée fare but nothing special either way