mrb1980 Lots of war movies follow a familiar pattern: there are lots of standard characters (southern guy with a harmonica, timid replacement soldier, grizzled sergeant, bookish guy with glasses, old veteran who's being discharged but has to fight one more battle, coward who does something heroic, small town Midwestern kid, Italian guy from New York, love interest who dies, etc.), the war is a noble cause, and the U.S. Army or Marines win in the end despite all adversity. "Battleground" hits all the standard clichés, yet it's irresistible because it's based on actual events and it has a wonderful cast.Simply put, this is the story of the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, told by one small group of soldiers who must resist the enemy at all costs. The weather is horribly cold and foggy, the men are running short of supplies, and the pressure on them is relentless. The film has a lot of standard characters but is so well done that you'll forget that you've seen it all before. Among the cast are stalwarts such as James Arness, Richardo Montalban, Van Johnson, John Hodiak, Marshall Thompson, James Whitmore, Richard Jaeckel, Don Taylor, and many others. Leon Ames is particularly effective as a wise and experienced Army chaplain. The film effectively captures the misery that these men endured those many years ago, and it's very entertaining as well. Try to catch it and honor the few remaining surviving heroes of those long-ago days at Bastogne.

classicsoncall Writer Robert Pirosh drew on his own real life experience as a soldier during the Battle of the Bulge, while director Robert Wellman brought in a couple dozen veterans of that campaign to lend further authenticity to the dialog and on screen drama for this film. The result is a compelling World War II movie that relies more on character driven vignettes than on epic battlefield action. More so than most war films, this one puts you right in the bunkers and foxholes, and you can almost feel the unbearable discomfort of freezing in the mud and snow as enemy fire punctures the stillness of the battlefield. The picture honors it's heroes, the 'Battered Bastards of Bastogne' as fighting forces intent on stopping the Nazi war machine. In a thoughtful scene, Army chaplain Leon Ames attempts to answer the question 'Is this trip necessary'? Generations of Americans to follow owe their freedom to men like the soldiers who fought in the Battle of the Bulge, screaming eagles who valued their patriotism and were willing to die to prove it.

LeonLouisRicci In Reality, one of the Major Concerns or the Director/Writer, is that there is Literally No Real Ground in this Staged Production. It will probably come as no Surprise to those Watching this that almost all of it was Filmed on a Stage and Back Lot. Sorry, but that does not allow for a whole lot of Battleground Realism.So this is a Character Study, or more Accurately, a Multiple Character Study of the Men in and around Bastogne. The Grunts are Stereotypical and are a group of Multi-National Melting Pot Joes. There is some Believable Banter among the Brothers and most of the Movie is mostly that. A lot of Banter about this and that, Insignificant Stuff like False Teeth, Newspapers, and Mom's Home Baked Pies.Sure, this happens but here a lot of it Smacks of Cliché, with Actors on Stage given a lot of "get to know Me" Dialog before they are Forced to do Battle. There are some Battles but not many. There is some Combat Tension, but not much. The Preacher's Sermon is straight out of Post-War Anti-Communist Rhetoric, and there again, so much for Realism.This is a Fondly Remembered and well Liked Film. Multiple Oscar Nominee, including Best Picture, but it is Really not that Great and is Overrated and much Loved more for its Real Life Participants and Events, than this rather Stiff War Movie. It almost seems like one of those TV Playhouse 90 Things. Perhaps, Subconsciously, TV was already starting to influence Movie Making, even in the Early Years.

MrGKB ...but "Battleground," an early Cold War salute to the "Battered Bastards of Bastogne," has a certain charm that transcends its limited portrayal of the rigors of war seen through the eyes of a fictitious platoon of the 101st Airborne during the Battle of the Bulge, which took place less than five years before the film was shot. As other wags on this site have noted, it was an obvious precursor to modern productions like "Band of Brothers" and "The Battle of the Bulge," not to mention "Saving Private Ryan" and "A Midnight Clear." Its Oscar for B&W Cinematography is well-deserved (combined with some excellent production and art design), given that it was shot almost entirely on a sound stage, but less so for its screenplay, which although good, is far from great, spending far too much time introducing characters with little depth, despite the veneer of idiosyncratic anecdote applied to them. Still, "Battleground" is better than many war films of the period, such as the uber-patriotic "Sands of Iwo Jima," a badly dated John Wayne vehicle. The ensemble cast works well together, with an obvious stand-out performance by James "The Shawshank Redemption" Whitmore as the platoon's grizzled sergeant. The film's "fog of war" perspective of small-unit action is commendable, as is its refusal to do much moralizing (with the exception of a chaplain's exhortation at film's end which seems to be more of a not-so-veiled pronouncement against the new bogeyman of communism than anything else); "Battleground" was one of the first post-WWII films to convey a genuine sense of the "dogface" experience. Recommended, with the caveat that the film is very much a reflection of its time.