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Halls of Montezuma
 
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Halls of Montezuma

Rated: NR (Not Rated) | Format: DVD
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

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Lewis Milestone was the American cinema's premier maker of war movies for three decades. He won an Academy Award for the single most honored film about World War I, All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), and made one of the most distinctive contemporaneous films of World War II, A Walk in the Sun (1945)--a notable influence on Saving Private Ryan. Still, some of his efforts were rather less than milestones, including The Halls of Montezuma. That still leaves room to accord the picture a marginal recommendation; it's well cast, competently made, and free of "Hollywood" heroics. But the hallmarks of Milestone's style--such as his syncopated tracking shots--were becoming mannerisms, and the screenplay's rhythms of personal crises set against the bigger picture of the military campaign are pretty mechanical.

Richard Widmark stars as a Marine platoon leader who, having brought only seven of his men through Guadalcanal, is determined to see them safely through the next island conquest. The lieutenant was a schoolteacher in civilian life--as we see in flashbacks--and one member of his command is a former student (Richard Hylton) he helped overcome fear. Other platoon members include ex-boxer Jack Palance, trigger-happy bad boy Skip Homeier, hardcase veterans Neville Brand and Bert Freed, and Karl Malden as a philosophical corpsman. However, the most arresting performance is given by Milestone discovery Richard Boone, making his screen debut as a sympathetic colonel stuck with fighting the Japanese and fighting off a miserable cold at the same time. --Richard T. Jameson

Description

Richard Widmark leads an all-star cast of leathernecks (Jack Palance, Robert Wagner, Karl Malden, Richard Boone, and Jack Webb) into battle on a heavily-fortified enemy island. Their objective is a Japanese rocket sit in the island's interior, and the combat-packed story follows the squad from beachhead to battle, as they pick their way trough enemy-infested jungles. Along the way, Widmark is transformed from a former school teacher into a combat-wizened leader, and his disparate squad of men is forged into a cohesive fighting unit.

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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews
5 star:
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4 star:
 (2)
3 star:    (0)
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Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars War Without the Glory, Jan 1 2004
By 
Stephen Kaczmarek "Educator, Writer, Consultant" (Columbus, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Halls of Montezuma (DVD)
With its grim tone and gritty production values, Lewis Milestone's "The Halls of Montezuma" is a strong entry in the annals of Hollywood war films, marred only by its almost propagandistically negative portrayal of the Japanese. The underrated Richard Widmark plays a determined patrol leader (and former teacher--shades of "Saving Private Ryan") who leads his men in what seems the fruitless search for a Japanese rocket base that is showering destruction upon his fellow Marines. A great ensemble cast of such now familiar faces as Karl Malden, Jack Webb, Martin Milner, Richard Boone, and Jack Palance share his onscreen struggles, which include the typical tragedies of war (shown in relatively graphic ways for the time). The stench of death nearly permeates the screen in "The Halls of Montezuma," punctuating each scene with a visceral energy many films today lack, which adds to the suspense of the film. The only real problem with Milestone's vision is its determination to treat the Japanese as something other than human--sneaky, arrogant, mechanical, mercenary, barbaric--calling to mind so much of the vicious anti-Japanese propaganda of World War Two (which the Germans and Italians--whose populations in the U.S. were significantly larger--seemed relatively spared of). It would be campy if not for the fact that such portrayals inspired generations of empty-headed movie-goers to think of Asians in general in such racist terms.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant film long before it's time., Feb 19 2004
By 
"jedi-master-gandalf" (Anaheim Hills, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Halls of Montezuma (DVD)
Halls of Montezuma is a surprisingly realistic view of war-life in the Pacific theater of World War II. The themes found in the film are close to those of Saving Private Ryan, where one's man's life is worth more than we know. Each main character's past is explored, showcasing some excellent direction by Milestone. The editing found in the origin stories is similar to that of Tom Hanks' directed episode, "Crossroads" in Band of Brothers and is a pleasant surprise.

I find that many of the "go-getter" Hollywood-isms found in the war films of that era are for the most part absent in this film, give or take a few scenes. The battles are brilliant executed and the face-to-face confrontations with the Japanese are both nerve-wrecking and frightening.

I think that Halls of Montezuma is so precious because it's grittiness and realism was a rariety among the big budget war pictures of the 1940's-60's. Films like this one and Kubrick's "Paths of Glory" are truly great war films long before their time.

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5.0 out of 5 stars I love this movie!, May 30 2003
This review is from: Halls of Montezuma (DVD)
I first watched this movie as a kid and bought it recently. Watching it the second time was even better. It portrays the Marines as real people that had lives before the war and as unique individuals on the front lines. Each one had his own fears and failings but each continued on in the face of overwhelming challenges.

The main thrust of the movie is that a group of combat veteran marines invade a Japanese held island. At first they make quick progress. But then they are met by a rocket barrage that goes on for hours. The advance comes to a stop, the rockets continue. The main part of the movie involves the Marines trying to find the location of the rockets so they can pass the info on to the Navy's carrier based attack planes.

The ending is predictable, but how they get there isn't.

As a side note, Jack Webb (Sargent Friday from Dragnet) plays a war correspondent.

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