See the handout on All Quiet on the Western Front (1930).
LM's third film about 20thC wars: WW1 in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930); WW2 Italy in A Walk in the Sun (1945); Korean War in Pork Chop Hill (1959). All three are in B&W.
Note also his pro-Soviet propaganda war film North Star (1943).
Based upon the memoirs of Brigadier General S.L.A. Marshall. Made with the cooperation of the US Army.
See also the oral history by Donald Knox and Alfred Coppel, The Korean War: Uncertain Victory. The Concluding Volume of An Oral History (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988). The following acount is by the sole American survivor of an engagement at Pork Chop Hill in late March 1953, Cpl. Joe Scheuber:
We were surrounded. There was nothing to do but gather what men we could and try to reach the top of the hill, where we could at least make a stand.
I gathered perhaps a dozen men by the time we reached the trenching on the top. But the Chinese had got there before us, and as soon as we appeared, the fighting began.
The fighting was heavy and confused. I turned to look back, hoping that some more of our people might be coming up to reinforce us. As I did, an enemy soldier shot my steel helmet off my head. I hit the ground and lost my rifle. I grabbed a grenade and threw it, never hearing it explode, though it must have. I saw the Korean soldier (ROK) who had been with me in the foxhole run his bayonet into a Chinese. There was a tremendous amount of noise and confusion, with bullets flying in every direction. It looked to me as though we were being pushed off the hill. A bullet tugged at my field jacket and nicked my arm. I got up and started back down the hill. As I did that, I caught sight of a Chinese soldier shooting at me. I lobbed a grenade at him and killed him.
The, quite suddenly I found myself in a foxhole - a shallow one - holding my last grenade with the pin pulled. I tried to think what would I do if the Chinese came upon me. Would I throw the grenade - my last weapon of any sort - or would I blow myself up and hope to take one of them with me? Among the many things that crossed my mind in those moments was the question, What in hell was I, an American, doing here in Korea, fighting Chinese? (p. 488).
The name of the Chinese-held ridge, 70 miles away from the peace negotiations being conducted at Panmunjon, which the Army company led by Lt Clemons (numbering 25 out of 135) must hold in order that the US officiers at the negotiations can prove to their Chinese counterparts that the Americans are "serious". Set in April 17, 1953.
1. Have LM's views on war changed at all in 29 years since he made the classic anti-war film All Quiet on the Western Front (1930).
2. The Cinebooks volume on War Movies (1989) suggests this and the Vietnam war film Hamburger Hill (1987) would make an interesting double-bill of movies about "unwinnable" assaults on hills made to make political points.
3. The two contrasting black soldiers (the professional NCO vs the would-be deserter "letting down the team") fighting in the first integrated fighting units in American history.
4. The oft expressed view by US soldiers that it was confusing to be fighting another war so soon after 1945. Their reluctance to fight given the fact that peace negotiations are under way and that the war might end any day. Who wants to be the last person to die in the war?
5. The grim realism of the battlefield which LM creates - compare the scenes of No Man's Land in AQWF.
6. The combination of anti-war and heoric sentiments - the futility of taking the hill so that US officers can save face vs the courage, determination and heroism of the ordinary US foot soldier.
7. The ironic refence to an injured soldier called "Audie Murphy".
8. The use of propaganda by public address system by the Chinese.