On the sixtieth anniversary of D-Day, as George W. Bush, who evaded danger (and seemingly was AWOL even from his cushy posting in Alabama) praises the courage of Ronald Reagan, who similarly skillfully kept himself out of any danger during World War II, and as Bush besmirches the carefully planned Allied invasion of Europe as equivalent to his ill-planned pre-emptive and nearly unilateral invasion of Iraq, I decided to write about a World War II film that celebrated the devotion to duty of common soldiers, Robert Aldrich's 1956 "Attack!"

Robert Aldrich directed many gritty dramas, including the prototypical "guy flick," The Dirty Dozen." "Attack!" has one of the most compelling and heroic performances of Jack Palance's career. He plays Lt. Joe Costa, who commands a platoon of a National Guard unit deployed in Belgium in 1944. Fox company is commanded by Captain Erskine Cooney (Eddie Albert), someone who, like George W. Bush who owes his National Guard position to family connections (Cooney's father is a judge and political magnate in the unnamed home state) and who combines cluelessness and unsweving dogmatism. At the start of the movie, Captain Cooney refuses to send adequate support to one platoon. Later, he orders Lt. Costa to lead one platoon into a town, La Nelle, promising support if the patrol encounters Germans, and again not providing support for those whom he sends into harm's way. (In this analogy, I do not mean to imply that the current commander-in-chief is as cowardly as Capt. Cooney, but Capt. Cooney in the film is closer to combat danger than Bush ever was. Also, Bush's alcoholism is in remission.)

The conniving, sadistic bully Cooney has kept his command because his commander Lt. Col. Bartlett (Lee Marvin) has political ambitions back home and wants to assure future support from the judge. Col. Bartlett chastises Capt. Cooney and assures subordinates that they will not be sent back into battle. However, there is a German counter-attack (somewhat modeled on the Battle of the Bulge, but not set in wintertime nor in a forest). Marvin delivers a complex portrait of a crafty, thoroughly cynical, and quite corrupt bureaucrat who nonetheless has a streak of the no-nonsense leader of "The Dirty Dozen." Albert's terrified and terrifyingly incompetent captain is not a stock villain; at least I started to feel sorry for him as he more-or-less flips out during the German attack.

As a resourceful, dependable, sagacious sergeant, Buddy Ebsen comes across as the sanest man in the movie. He's a crack shot and in the Clint Eastwood mould of not wasting words. Lt. Woodruff (William Smithers) does waste words and vacillates as Lt. Woodruff, a competent careerist not about to join a mutiny.

Much of the movie shows Lt. Costa's platoon going in, being pinned down, and trying to get back so that Costa can fulfill his vow to rip Cooney's heart out is he again fails to provide promised support. Costa is as fearless as Cooney is fear-filled, but eventually even more crazed. Demonic was one of Palance's fortes (before he mellowed in "Bagdad Cafe" and "City Slickers"; Palance was also superb in Aldrich's "The Big Knife").

The climax surprised me, so I won't reveal anything about it. The anti-climax is less surprising and leads to an ending I find hard to believe, but can't elaborate on without plot despoiling.

Although it has a lot of action, and Palance and Ebsen are compelling in holding their motley platoon together and making it an effective military unit in standard genre fashion, the primary focus of "Attack!" is on the conflicts among the officers. The hostility between Albert and Palance is electrifying, and Marvin's contempt for the spoiled rich boy he has been holding up his whole life is convincing. The negotiating between Marvin and Smithers is also fascinating to watch.

Aided (herein as elsewhere) by Joe Biroc's black-and-white cinematography and with no cooperation from the US military, Aldrich made one of the best combat dramas on the RKO lot in 35 days. It is vastly superior to the big-budget "Charge of the Light Brigade" and "The Battle of the Bulge," and arguably superior to Stanley Kubrick's over-revered "Paths of Glory" (visually and in not copping out). No less gritty but less extreme in its characterizations is the great but seemingly forgotten Korean War film "Pork Chop Hill" (1959, directed by Lewis Milestone).

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The DVD in its full-screen original aspect ratio with an excellent video transfer, and a generally good audio transfer (though I wish some of the music wasn't there to be transferred). The original theatrical trailer is included.


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD