After a disposable Western (I SHOT JESSE JAMES/’49) and a comic-tinged period adventure outside his range (THE BARON OF ARIZONA/’50), third time proved the charm (if that’s the word) for writer/ director Sam Fuller, finding his signature tone of pulp nihilism producing this tough, low-budget Korean War drama. Character actor Gene Evans gets a rare lead as a gruff ‘immortal’ sergeant type, left for dead with the rest of his unit, he’s helped by a plucky South Korean kid who he slowly warms up to. Lost in the featureless terrain, they’re soon joined by a black medic and later a lost infantry platoon. Holding out at a Buddhist Monastery as the enemy closes in, they’re picked off from without and within while working on a busted transmitter and waiting for relief. Plenty of time for social issues (race relations, communist ideals, the efficacy of hair tonics) to come into play. Grim and gritty, if unevenly played, Fuller is largely successful at camouflaging his Poverty Row budget, less so at fitting in politics and philosophy among this motley crew. Fierce for the era, but often too on-the-nose, it's Korean War meets the High School Debating Society.
DOUBLE-BILL: Fuller’s personal war was WWII, but by the time he got around to it, his cult had outrun his current abilities. THE BIG RED ONE disappointed in a 1980 two-hour studio cut and not much improved by 40 minutes in the posthumous 2005 Director’s Cut. But worth seeing.
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