Based on Director Samuel Fuller's experiences as a combat soldier in WWII, The Big Red One tells the story of the 1st Infantry Division, created in WWI and nicknamed the Big Red One from the large red numeral 1 stitched on their shoulder patches. The first American shots fired during WWI came from the 1st Infantry Division and the Big Red One was also there at Meuse-Argonne when the Germans were defeated and the Armistice signed.

France, 1918, we join a nameless doughboy (Lee Marvin) as he grapples with and stabs a German straggler only to find that the war has been over for four hours. The soldier does not seem particularly distressed about the killing…

Flash forward twenty-four years, to 1942 and we find the same soldier, this time a buck sergeant. The sergeant has a squad of men, twelve troops he calls his wetnoses. As the film progresses, a handful of the troops are singled out and the viewer is allowed to get to know them. Mark Hamill, Robert Carradine, Kelly Ward, and Bobby Di Ciccio play the favored few and we follow Marvin with these men through campaigns in North Africa, Sicily, France, Belgium, Germany, ending up in Czechoslovakia where the war ends. Eventually the focus narrows to Marvin, Hamill, and Carradine, the Samuel Fuller character, a rifleman who is a writer and who narrates the story.

The story, by Samuel Fuller, is character driven and shows the development of the Marvin, Hamill, and Carradine characters through immersion in the realities of war. The story moves from set piece to set piece with continuity provided by the familiar characters. Marvin is a remorseless killer; Hamill is a troop who is reluctant to fire his weapon in battle, Carradine is a blustery cigar-chomping correspondent.

Dialog is very good and true to life, for example an exchange between Griff (Hamill) and the sergeant. Griff "I can't murder anybody." Sgt: "We don't murder; we kill." Griff: "It's the same thing." Sgt: The hell it is, Griff. "You don't murder animals; you kill 'em." By the end of the picture Griff learns for himself the truth behind the sarge's words. The sergeant goes through a similar mellowing process as he knifes a German after the war is over, mirroring his action in WWI, only this time he gives the soldier first aid once he realizes his mistake.

Comic relief is introduced to leaven the grim subject matter. A couple of the soldiers help deliver a baby. "How do you say "push" in French?" "Poosay." "Pus-sy, pus-sy!" "No, poosay! Poosay!" The Germans are also shown to be less than monolithic in their beliefs and fragmented in their loyalty to Der Fuerhrer.

The acting among the three main characters is very good, however the supporting cast does not get a chance to make an impression before they are killed and swept away by Fuller's abbreviated directing style.

The biggest problem with The Big Red One is the low budget. It shows in the battle scenes, which are stagey and often obscured by smoke or fog, and the props, which are not always authentic, for example, repainted American tanks substitute for German panzers. The camera work is good considering the micro budget. The editing is problematic, as some scenes seem to be incomplete. This may be because the studio recut Fuller's four-hour movie, reducing it to two hours. If any movie could benefit from a director's cut, this would have to be a candidate.

Due to its unassuming manner in letting the characters speak for themselves, The Big Red One may be one of the most authentic memoirs of a combat soldier on film.

I recommend The Big Red One for Lee Marvin fans and fans of war movies. Other recommended war movies include Samuel Fuller's Merrill's Marauders, To Hell and Back (war experiences of Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier of WWII), and Sergeant York (the most decorated soldier of WWI.



Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD