A WALK IN THE SUN (1945)

Released six months after WWII ended, this granular look at a 1943 assignment in Occupied rural Italy (blow a small bridge; take the nearby German-held farm house) has a somber, even downbeat edge new at the time.  (Suddenly able to skip Rah-Rah Recruitment tropes, only the overly triumphant music score missed the memo.)  Producer/director Lewis Milestone certainly knows his way around the material (note the use of hands to indicate death as he famously did in ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT/’30), and he’s got the cast to make believable grunts on a dangerous six mile tramp thru enemy territory after a coastal landing (strafing from above, tanks roaming on land) before reaching their target.  Dana Andrews, at the time the only real ‘name’ in the cast, is particularly fine, still standing as the platoon runs thru four commanders ahead of him before the day is done.  There’s a seen-it-all-before attitude from the men and a fatalistic acceptance of death’s random call, weighed against survival, sacrifice and luck in combat.  But the honest, blunt affect shown by the men (and it’s all men, not even a token female for the poster) is seriously undercut by a script that’s too poetic by half.  They might be speaking blank verse.  (Out of the Harry Brown novella this was taken from?)  Worse, when that overripe score isn’t playing underneath the occasional battle, there’s sure to be a new verse of an Earl Robinson ballad on the troop’s quotidian duties.  It’s not much different than Robinson's ‘The House I Live In,’ the famous Oscar-winning anti-racist anthem currently playing in theaters as a short-subject with Frank Sinatra singing the praises of America’s melting pot.  Here, a Black singer brings out extra Gospel Music flavor.  (Ironic when  considered against the Army’s still current policy of strict segregation.*)  But generally well handled, especially once a pair of Italian deserters pass thru and bring a little relief to the grim tone.  After this, the poetic rambling dials down considerably.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/LINK:  *Not till 1948 when President Truman officially desegregated the military.  During the war years, the only integrated (and defacto ‘Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell’) unit in the Army was Irving Berlin’s personal UFO traveling revue ‘This Is The Army.’   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2009/05/this-is-army-1943.html