tieman64 "It was strange to be so close to things and yet so far away. That was war. That was always war. It was confused and it was incoherent and it was unreasonable. Nothing ever happened quite on time, nothing ever happened exactly as was expected. War, itself a paradox, was full of paradoxes. A platoon of men, in on the first landing on an enemy coast, could be completely bypassed by events. They could sit in a hollow while all around them things went, or should be going, according to plan, and while the platoon, itself an integral part of the whole operation, seemed to be entirely forgotten. Yet had the platoon been unnecessary, it might well have found itself caught underneath shells and planes. [...] But mostly, war builds patience. For war is a dull business, the dullest business on earth. War is a period of waiting. Each day of it is crammed with the little hesitations of men uncertain of themselves and awed by the ghastly responsibilities – the responsibilities of life and death, the responsibilities of gods – that have been thrust into their hands. The soldier waits for food, for clothing, for a letter, for a battle to begin. And often the food never is served, the clothing is never issued, the letter never arrives, and the battle never begins. The soldier learns to wait meekly, hoping that something will happen. And when the period of waiting is at an end, the something that does happen isn't what he expected. So in the end he learns to wait and expect nothing. That is patience, God's one great gift to the soldier. But he refuses to confess his patience. He curses the fact that he has to wait. He howls at those who cause the waiting. And that too is good, in a way. For the man who waits silently is not a good soldier. He is no more than a stone." - Harry Brown (excerpt from "A Walk In The Sun") Harry Brown wrote "A Walk In The Sun" in 1944, one of literatures great WW2 novellas. Brown, like Joyce, Hemingway and Mailer, other major war writers of the era, all had a terse, abrupt, economical, minimalist, gruff way with words – their prose flew like bullets, abrupt and to the point - possibly influenced by the unadorned style demanded by newspapers. Think the pulp poetry of Sam Fuller's war movies and you have their tone.Lewis Milestone directed many war films ("All Quiet On The Western Front", "Halls of Montezuma", "Pork Chop Hill"), most of which muddle together two entirely divergent and contradictory messages. Take "Pork Chop Hill", for example, a film about the Korean War which ignores the Korean War and instead curries favour with 1959 audiences by invoking the fears and necessities of the Cold War, a stance which needs to predict an optimistic, even a celebratory outcome and outlook. Since the substitution of the Cold War for the Korean War was deemed by Milestone incapable of being acknowledged, the film displays an ambivalence towards the entire Korean conflict and its consequences. So on one hand he wants to celebrate the soldiers of the Cold War, a war which he sees as necessary, whilst also mourning the loss of those who died and were squandered in the Korean conflict (historically a part of the Cold War), a stance which predicts a pessimistic, even a tragic outcome and outlook. This is a common dichotomy in war films; Celebratory vs Tragedy: it is in this fashion that most war films (most notably those which proclaim themselves to be antiwar) veer pathologically between antiwar statement and gung-ho propaganda.So Milestone's adaptation of Brown's "A Walk In The Sun" remains, perhaps, his less ideologically muddled film. It stars Dana Andrews as Sgt Tyne, a platoon squad leader who, after a botched beach landing in Italy, witnesses the loss of several of his men and is then tasked with capturing an isolated Nazi-held farmhouse. True to Brown's novella, most of the film consists of walking, huddling in the dark, chatting and hiding in bushes, the tale stressing the drudgery, boredom, long hours and mind-numbing banter that epitomises the life of a grunt. Unfortunately, the pleasure's of Brown's writing – his staccato dialogue, macho-poetic prose, rambling conversations which skitters across nonsense and profundity whilst revealing the hopes, thoughts and longings of his young, mostly lug-headed grunts – can't quite survive Milestone's translation to screen. It's good prose – take sequences in which grunts argue about dirt, their incessant walking and whether the human body is more complex than a leaf – but not the kind of prose that works well for cinema unless you have a skilled word-oriented director on tap (think, perhaps, Mamet, Hawks or Fuller).Regardless, this is an unusual and unique war movie, and one of the most interesting platoon movies of the 1940s.7.9/10 – Worth one viewing. Read Brown's book instead.

drystyx This is a WWII film, made during the war, and therefore should be closer to the truth than later films.We get attempts at character, and some of the banter is well done.We get some situations that are well done, such as the confusion, of not knowing what is going on somewhere else, which two characters experience early in a trench, and which brings too much curiosity out in one of the characters.We have a realistic depiction of a breakdown.There, the assets of the film stop. Unfortunately, we get the heavy handed cigarette commercial, and we know tobacco companies sponsor this film since any character who doesn't light up a cigarette is destined to become a casualty. The predictability doesn't end there. The film goes beyond being a bit contrived into the "here we go again" clichés.The clichés ruin this film. For a film that tries to pride itself on realism, there is an incredible lack of screaming after being shot, and of the cleanest wounds ever in film. That would be passable, except that immediately after a man is shot, the camera follows him for many seconds of "taking the pain" quietly, and we never even see any pain on these men. Now, some directors go overboard on the "pain" deal, and they are just as stereotypical, but this film is ridiculous in the other direction.We know from the contrived writing which characters bullets will find, and which they won't.And the stupid song that went with it brings the rating down considerably.Most war films from this era were very good in one way or another. This one falls well short of them.

Mitchellsbny I first saw A Walk in the Sun in the early 1960's on TV with my Dad, who was a combat veteran of the 36th Infantry Division. His unit was made up of Texas National Guard soldiers and draftees that was one of the first US Army units that landed in Europe at Paestrum, Italy in September 1943.The movie depicts a rifle company assigned to capture a farmhouse inland from the Salerno, Italy beachhead. This movie shows the operation of an infantry unit with more realism without all the special effects used by Hollywood in subsequent films. The coordination of the men and their dialog (with "loving" substituted for the beautiful soldier's language) as spoken between Richard Conte and George Tyne's characters was realistic and rang true to me as a kid growing up in Brooklyn, NY. It's interesting to note that many young actors like Lloyd Bridges and Norman Lloyd (who is still alive and active) made up an excellent ensemble cast. Years later after researching the history of the 36th Division and the Italian campaign, I feel that A Walk in the Sun along with The Story of GI Joe, most closely approximates the soldier's view of combat.

Roger Burke What can you expect from one of the most prolific directors ever to come from Hollywood – the man responsible for All quiet on the western front (1930), Rain (1932), Of Mice and Men (1939), The Strange love of Martha Ivers (1946) and many, many others? Well, nothing less than one of the most personal views of war since All Quiet (1930)...Deeply introspective, deceptively comedic, disturbingly real, this account of one day in the life and death of a platoon of American soldiers landing at Salerno in Italy, in 1943, must rank as one of the most poignant snapshots of war ever put to film, and, in my opinion, an excellent example of how to make good cinema – despite the "bells and whistles", so to speak, for that time: the narration by Burgess Meredith and the ballad sung by Kenneth Spencer (who sounds uncannily like Paul Robeson, I think). Those two aspects certainly date this production, more or less, if you didn't know it was made in 1945. Hollywood was, at those times, very big on ballads with dramas; need I say Gene Autry, Roy Rodgers et al?Some might even be bored with the long introduction to the landing, when the viewer is introduced to each of the main characters by way of their interaction with others; or as whimsical introspection as some, like Pvt. Craven (John Ireland), contemplate the nature of life, death and the whole damn thing. In succession, the viewer knows the quiet strength and honesty of Sgt. Tyne (Dana Andrews); the hip repartee between Pvts Rivera and Friedman (Richard Conte & George Tyne); the earthy homeliness of Sgt Ward (Llyod Bridges); the innocence of Pvt Judson (Steve Brodie); and many other well known character actors who were the mainstays of so many black and white classics of that time.The platoon's mission is simple: advance to the enemy lines to a certain farmhouse a few miles inland; attack and kill/capture the enemy; and secure the position. Simple enough, except that the platoon lieutenant is killed before landing, forcing the top sergeant Eddie Porter (Herbert Rudley) to take over. Unhappily, his nerves are shredded from too much battle fatigue, and shortly after, he's reduced to tearful inaction, thus forcing another change in leadership to Sgt. Tyne who then rallies the men to get the job done. It's a dramatic scenario that must have happened in real life, maybe many times.The dialog is the best aspect of this story, no question, showing just how ordinary men do act and think to keep their courage and sanity in desperate situations, knowing that their next step might be their last, but ready to do their duty come what may. I know that sounds corny and maybe it is, but without some sense of the need to get a dangerous job done – even at the highest personal cost – there can be no victory over evil. In its small way, this movie encapsulates all that is honourable about the human spirit while also exploring its limits. A contrasting example – but a very similar story line and mise-en-scene – was Attack (1956), a gripping psychological tussle between Jack Palance, Lee Marvin and Eddie Albert, also in a remote farm house. For younger viewers than I, a more recent comparison that comes to my mind is Malick's The Thin Red Line (1998), an account of a battle for a hilltop on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands – and again, very much under the sun. I'd recommend both of those films also.Some would argue, perhaps, that the production standards of this film were clunky, even laughably fake. They would be those who can't see the wood for the trees: a cast of characters so real that you can see part of yourself in every one of them with no difficulty at all. And as the narrative unfolds on that very ordinary day, I was in fact caught thinking about the limits of my own courage when faced with the ever present shadow of death...So, I guess I can fault the production for using what looked like P51 Mustangs as German or Italian fighters; I can raise an eyebrow at the low budget special effects; or the unaccountable lack of sweat on any of the soldiers as they walk in the sun, for Pete's sake, for a whole day...But you can't ignore the sheer honesty of the narrative; the stark black-and-white photography; the great tracking shots used in battle; or the quick and very effective cuts between different pairs of soldiers as they discuss whatever soldiers discuss during battle and during the lulls that form the bulk of all soldiers' stories.If you are a fan of the war genre, this is a must-see movie.