Fixed Bayonets! – 1951 Fuller

Fixed Bayonets! is Fuller’s fourth film, and a cousin and companion piece to his third (Steel Helmets)- both about the Korean war, shot in 1951, visceral—a trademark of Fuller’s, starring Gene Evans, description of equipment or weapons in their titles
This is shot by Lucien Ballard (Kubrick’s The Killing in 1956 and a bunch of films with Peckinpah including The Wild Bunch)
The plot is set in the first seven minutes, this is 48 men “giving 1500 men a break” or sacrificing themselves to be rearguard as the unit moves. This is the story of the courage and inevitable death of these 48 men- a dark film- another one
Hard-nosed dialogue like “I’m more worried about losing my division than this arm” as the general puts a chew in

Evans, not quite as powerful as he is in The Steel Helmet, is so perfect “a man on his belly looks like snow—a man standing up looks like a man”
The story of grunts in a platoon- The Big Red One

Another narrative arc going on is the men picked off one by one who stand between Richard Basehart and leadership (he does not want to be in charge at all)—Basehart is best known for playing the fool in Fellini’s La Strada just three years after this
Fuller has a great shot sweeping the camera around the platoon of men in the caves at 80
a magnificent sequence at 57 minutes- close-ups up Basehart with land mines setpiece—intense- step by step in the snow

Holed up in a cave
Ends with a solemn string of men carrying all the dead and a close up of Basehart with the voice of Evans from beyond the grave
Recommend

2020-07-03T10:28:04+00:00