Word: soldiers
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...families were finding it almost impossible to earn a living wage and still be honest. The young boy in this film makes more money on the black market than him father does in a factory. The sister takes to jitterbugging and wearing black-lace drawers. So when the Italian soldier comes home, the plight in which he finds him own family can be taken as somewhat typifying that of Italy at the time. "Revenge" was intended to carry a message of hope to the people of Italy. To this observer, distant in both time and space from the problem...
...comedy. The Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy have been successful at the same type of comedy for years, a slapstick variety with humor arising from situation and double-meanings rather than from plot intricacies. That is the type of humor in "The Braggart Warrior." Briefly, a soldier with a bigger mouth than a sword has one woman and would woo another. He keeps the first against her will, while her real lover waits next door. He is tricked into releasing her, and receives a beating and almost a fate worse than death--from his standpoint--for his pains...
Albert Borowitz, as Pygropolynices, the soldier whose amorous conquests pale before his last defeat, plays his role with a flair that is truly laugh-provoking. Swishing his sword about, gazing at himself in his mirror--which he continually carries about with him--he plays the title role with great gusto. He enjoys it himself, and certainly last night's audience did. John Rexine plays the old gentleman of Ephesus, Periplectomenus, naturally and well and George Mulhern gives a fine performance as a slave through whose agency the true lovers are reunited and the warrior disgraced. The real show-stopper...
Among Marine officers, only Vandegrift is considered, and Pratt describes his handling of the Guadalcanal action with fine clarity. The casualty figures underline the sharpshooter tradition perfectly. Japanese dead: 32,000; U.S.: 2,000. The second World War II choice is Bradley, of whom Pratt says flatly: "The ablest soldier in any service during World...
Readers who know that it takes ships, planes, artillery and service troops to get the infantryman within range of a live target, may feel that Pratt has cheered the role of the foot soldier to the point of oversimplification. Actually he takes nothing away from the other arms; his peep-sight view merely assumes that their work had already been done. None of these sketches is exhaustive, but every one is readable, informal history that few armchair tacticians would wish to miss and few professional soldiers could fail to learn from. What will keep Eleven Generals and many a plain...