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Tuesday, October 3, 2017

BATTLE ZONE (1952)

This, one of the few Korean War pics made during the conflict, fails to connect on a pretty good idea: Frenemies from back in their WWII days as Combat Photographers, career marine man Stephen McNally has mixed feelings when free-lancer John Hodiak rejoins the unit. First off, McNally’s happily engaged to Hodiak’s ex-fiancé Linda Christian; second, McNally does the boring, but necessary grunt work (enemy terrain assessment, munition piles) while Hodiak gets special ‘ops’ high-profile assignments. Robert Capa eat your heart out. Both equally valuable, but for glory, medals and the gal . . . glamour-boy’s got the edge. Or does he? A tasty set up, and the cast is solid, but this modest programmer does so little with it. At first, it’s all romantic triangle going nowhere before finally tossing in a down-and-dirty last-minute behind-enemy-lines sortie to gather Photo-Intel before the big offensive push. Danger boy and detail man working in tandem. Journeyman helmer Lesley Selander keeps the motor running juggling action, actuality footage, dutiful comic relief and date nights, but producer Walter Wanger (with many a stellar credit on both sides of this) must have had his mind elsewhere. You bet he did! Still working his way back into Hollywood graces after a four month jail term for attempted murder. Yikes!* No wonder he wasn’t giving the dramatic opportunities his full attention.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Convinced of an affair between wife Joan Bennett & agent (later producer) Jennings Lang, Wanger took a shot . . . and missed. Better aim might have spared us all those AIRPORT sequels. (BTW: wife Bennett stuck by her husband.)

DOUBLE-BILL: Hodiak’s success in the WWII/Battle of the Bulge themed BATTLEFRONT/’49 (see below) no doubt played a role in choosing this film’s title. OR: Sticking with Korea, it was only after Eisenhower got most of the troops home (the war never officially ended) that Hollywood did a big-budget film on Korea with THE BRIDGES OF TOKO-RI/’54.

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