leethomas-11621 Jurgens gives a wonderful performance and Burton was never better. A largely peaceful war movie. In this age of drone warfare Leith's disdain for Brand's fear of close combat is especially relevant. (viewed 9/16)

HotToastyRag For 1957, Bitter Victory is a pretty graphic war movie. It's filmed in black and white, but bloodstains and bullet holes are shown, deaths are prolonged, and the suspense of war is captured well.Curd Jurgens plays an officer in charge of a mission to German-controlled Benghazi during WWII. His second-in-command is Richard Burton, and since Burton is in love with Jurgens's wife, they don't have a very good working relationship. As interesting as this dynamic is, on and off the battlefield, the war scenes are where this movie really shines.This is not your typical WWII movie where one randomly fired gun makes the bad guy fall over, and the good guy comes home with a tiny scratch on his forehead as a battle scar. These men are out in the desert, delirious from heat and dying from dehydration, unfamiliar with the terrain, fighting men, scorpions, and the sun, and forced to face worse situations than they thought possible. I won't spoil anything, but there's a very intense scene in which one soldier is dying and another soldier has to decide whether to shoot him and put him out of his misery or let him die a slow, painful death. Those scenes weren't generally filmed in 1957! If you're used to lots of blood and torture in your war movies, you won't find this movie very exciting. But for a tasteful, classic war movie, it's very good. It's one of the best war movies I've seen. Plus, Richard Burton looks so incredibly handsome in his uniform. Ladies, you'll definitely want to check this one out.

screenman This is one of those 'before I was a megastar' turkeys that are best forgotten.Starring Richard Burton and Kurt Jurgens as British army officers serving in the middle-east during WW2; they are also the male corners of a predictably tedious love-triangle.Despite themselves and a decent sprinkling of familiar faces from the time, they all collectively fail to salvage anything but their pay-cheques from this formulaic hokum.Quite frankly; it's inept. In fact it's boring. The mission seems badly-planned and implausible from the outset. The conflicts are contrived, the tension scarcely noticeable. More effort seems to have gone into the model of the town that everyone is poring-over at the outset than has been applied to the 'real' stage sets. Filmed in black and white, that and the lighting are at least competent, but sound, effects, editing and script scarcely manage B-movie standards. The jealous exchanges between Burton and Jurgens are particularly banal and stagy.Unless you happen to be a rabid fan of either star, this is definitely one to miss. Which is a shame really; its 1950's vintage and black-&-white photography seem to promise so much more. The similarly styled and vintaged 'Ice Cold In Alex' could knock it into a cocked hat.

dbdumonteil Two errors in the cast:French actor Raymond Pellegrin is not credible as an Arab scout ,at least to French eyes;Ruth Roman is too cold to portray a Ray heroine successfully ;Hitchcock ,in Truffaut/Hitchcock ,said the same about her in "strangers on a train" .But it does not matter because it's a man's movie .It is curious to have cast Jurgens as an South African officer but his playing opposite a young Burton is quite efficient.The cast and credits had warned us : the enemy you fight is not the one you think of .The last scene clinches it ,when the medal amounts to nothing.This is not Ray's best film ,but it is probably his most violent one : Burton saving the dead and killing the living is impressive ;Jurgens eaten with jealousy and hatred watching the scorpion..Compare the death of Burton with that of Burl Ives in "winds across the everglades" ,the follow-up to "bitter victory" .The strange ancient city in the middle of the desert is an exact equivalent of the planetarium in "rebel without a cause" : those walls still standing and those stars in the sky will survive our little wars ,our glorious (or bitter) victories or our growing up angst.