Word: foremans
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Victors. Dismayed by Hollywood's handling of The Bridge on the River Kwai, which he wrote, and The Guns of Navarone, which he wrote and produced, Carl Foreman wrote, produced, and this time directed an epic he calls a "personal statement" about the futility of war. Both victor and vanquished are losers, Foreman says. Then he says it again. His film delivers not one statement but a whole barrage of them, all strung together in newsreel clips and hit-or-miss dramatic vignettes that pound, pound, pound...
...story begins in England, 1942. Two young G.I.s, played by George Hamilton and George Peppard, are members of a U.S. Army squad that Foreman follows to Sicily, to D-day and France, and finally to the Soviet zone of Berlin. In Sicily, Hamilton spurns Betty Grable pinups for shots of Soviet recruits. "I'd like to meet a Russian G.I. sometime, some day," he moons. His odd fixation presages the picture's climax-a senseless knife fight between Hamilton and a Russian soldier (Albert Finney), who slay one another in the ruins of Berlin...
...unconvincing scene, a muddled plea for brotherhood, G.I.s gape idly while two Negroes in uniform are beaten up by drawling American soldiers enjoying a "coon hunt." To complete a $50 wager, a couple of the boys gun down a puppy. There are looting episodes too. But when Foreman's lads grow misty-eyed over a music box waltz, they prove they are vandals with heart...
Avoiding battle scenes, Foreman cannily keeps the war warmish in a series of boy-meets-girl episodes that put the Army into the fray with some of Europe's lushest beauties. One soldier corrupts a trim Belgian violinist, Romy Schneider. Vince Edwards meets Rosanna Schiaffino. Eli Wallach, as a tough sergeant, sweats out an air raid abed with Jeanne Moreau. Hamilton pairs off with Elke Sommer, a free-living German girl whose parents approve of her enterprise. Peppard finds respite with Melina Mercouri, a black market wheeler-dealer. None can compare to the girl next door, of course...
Meanwhile, to keep his chronology straight, Foreman inserts newsreel footage from back home: the Rockettes try out an obstacle course; Shirley Temple marries John Agar; Bess Truman launches a flying ambulance. Cutting back to the action makes for a staccato "new cinema" pace-and for irony, tons and tons of it. Foreman likes his irony set to music. While troop trucks slog through snow, he cuts to a slide announcing: THE MANAGEMENT OF THIS THEATER WISHES EVERYBODY A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR 1945. EVERYBODY SING! Later, there is mawkish sentiment when some gentle British folk invite Peppard...