dougdoepke An utterly routine military film, minus anything that might distinguish it from the many other recruiting posters of the time, e.g. The DI (1957), Battle Cry (1955), et al. Except for the first few minutes of combat in Korea, the remainder is taken up with Basic Training at Fort Bliss, TX. Widmark gets the stereotypical role of an emotionally crippled drill sergeant, while Malden is wasted as his straight-arrow assistant. Third billed Stewart is the required love interest, who unfortunately is all hair and little talent. The remainder of the cast fills out the ranks of recruit trainees, with the usual array of witty or problem personalities. The movie's one notable feature turns up in the multi-racial ranks of the trainees, a relatively new updating for Hollywood.As a guy who went through Basic (at Ft. Bliss in the 60's), I have to agree with reviewer bkoganbing. Many of the incidents portrayed in the film would never have occurred in real training, especially Malden slugging Widmark in front of the trainees. But I guess the screenplay needed more action at that point. Then too, the language was really cleaned up for public viewing. I had to laugh every time Widmark benignly called the recruits "young people".What surprises me is the movie's director, Richard Brooks. How he got the job of supervising this sort of pablum is a puzzle, having built a reputation for highly serious work as a screenwriter, Brute Force (1948), Crossfire (1947), et al. Anyway, the movie is fairly typical of the sanitized type of military drama of the 1950's, before the stark realities of Vietnam sank in. (Contrast Basic Training here with it's more starkly realistic counterpart in Full Metal Jacket {1987}.) All in all, Take The High Ground is little more than a bland period curiosity.

MartinHafer This is a very, very familiar sort of film. It features a group of raw recruits going through basic training with a tough as nails Sergeant--the same sort of thing you'd see in "Battle Cry", "Sands of Iwo Jima" and even "Full Metal Jacket" and a bazillion other war flicks made by Hollywood. There are only a few other differences--this was a Korean War-era film (and they didn't make all that many compared to the more 'popular' wars like WWII) and the Sergeant really is a nut-job! While other Sergeants SEEM like crazy men, Richard Widmark's version really is emotionally disturbed--like the sort of guy you might see on "The Jerry Springer Show" as they slap or get slapped by their woman! And, since there are so many BETTER but similar sorts of films, my recommendation is to see them first. This one isn't bad, but I just felt that the psychological aspects of it and the twisted relationship between Widmark and a lady me loved to emotionally torment really detracted from the movie.What to dislike about the film--Widmark was a nut. What to like--Karl Malden was very good, as always.

rpburg Okay, this is not a great movie when considering it in the war movie genre or side by side with some of the classics that both Richard Widmark and Karl Malden made, but I will always think this as one of my favorites because my father is one of the extras in the movie. Take the High Ground was filmed at Fort Bliss in El Paso, TX in 1953 when my dad was in advanced training before being sent to Korea. When the movie crew came to the base, my dad's training platoon was "loaned" to the filmmakers by the Dept. of Defense to make the training scenes look a bit more realistic. There are the five or so "recruits" played by actors, then the rest are real U.S. Army soldiers. Whenever I watch this with my friends, I'm proud to point out my old man as one of the soldiers marching by, under the watchful eyes of Richard Widmark and Karl Malden. After the filming was over, Widmark and Malden took several of the soldiers (including my dad) out on the town to thank them for helping with the film. Both Widmark and Malden were classy men, and right away became my dad's favorite actors/stars. He just wishes that Elaine Stewart filmed her scenes in El Paso, instead of staying in Hollywood where they were shot at the studio.

elcutach While this may not be the movie that made me want to join the Army in 1956, it may have helped. The plot is a formulaic coming of age in basic training story, turning boys into men. The personal interactions and love affairs of Widmark and Malden, the veterans of Korea who are now leading a trainng platoon at Fort Bliss, Texas, next to El Paso are also formulaic.The real value of this picture is as a time capsule. Nothing herein is BS, dreamed up, or recreated such as are Platoon, or Full Metal Jacket or Apocalypse Now, to mention some more modern highly praised but highly fictionalized films. Nor is it an anachronistic mish mash such or a low budget BW cheapie such as many of that period were.Everything shown here is as it was at the time of filming and the background extras and other military individuals were actually going through infantry training with the real possibility of going to combat in Korea when it was being made. (An amusing aspect is that the opening scene of the newly arrived trainees and the disciplined troops entraining for their new assignments were filmed on the same day with the same Southern Pacific locomotive and equipment. Yet supposedly took place three months apart.)Other time capsule films of the time are Bombers B-57, and Strategic Air Command, which prove that officially approved films can be entertaining and informative both.