Halls of Montezuma | Richard Widmark, Jack Palance | 1950s war movie that is ahead of its time

Halls of Montezuma | Richard Widmark, Jack Palance | ...."THIS US MARINE FILM IS ....NONPAREIL"....THE BEST!!!

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Halls of Montezuma

	Halls of Montezuma Richard Widmark, Jack Palance 20th Century Fox, 2002 average customer review:based on 14 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Richard Widmark leads an all-star cast of leathernecks (Jack Palance, Robert Wagner, Karl Malden, Richard Boone, and Jack Webb) into battle on a heavily-fortified enemy island. Their objective is a Japanese rocket sit in the island's interior, and the combat-packed story follows the squad from beachhead to battle, as they pick their way trough enemy-infested jungles. Along the way, Widmark is transformed from a former school teacher into a combat-wizened leader, and his disparate squad of men is forged into a cohesive fighting unit.

1950s war movie that is ahead of its time

As a son of a US Marine I'd like to start off by recommending this film to anybody looking for possible gift ideas for a veteran. My dad and I both were pleasantly surprised by this film.

About the film
The Halls of Montezuma seemed a bit ahead of its time. The story centers around an USMC officer's growing war fatigue. A former high school teacher, Lt. Carl Anderson, is tasked with taking a small patrol into enemy territory to gather intelligence about the Japanese rocket launching base that is preventing the Marines from securing an unnamed Pacific island.

The story was slow enough that I had the change to care about the characters. However, the short action / combat sequences kept things moving along.

My first thought was that "Saving Private Ryan" had borrowed heavily from this film. Whether or not that is really the case, the two films are similar, and I would think anybody who enjoyed war films that are more focused on an individual's growing unease with a war will enjoy "Halls of Montezuma". The ending of the film simply seemed realistic, not happy, not surreal ... just realistic, and for a war film made so shortly after the Second World War this film seems ahead of its time.

About the DVD
We watched the film straight through, so I didn't have the chance to explore any of its menu features or chapter setups. The picture quality of the DVD was amazing. We were very pleased with that. However, FOX pictures included a rather long commercial at the beginning of the DVD that we considered skipping over.

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...."THIS US MARINE FILM IS ....NONPAREIL"....THE BEST!!!

...Nowhere, have I set eyes on a better Marine movie than this one...it has so much to offer besides the lethal war scenes...ponder this scene...the Marines leaving the safe sanctuary of those gaping LST doors in their briney wake, even the music puts your in their boots...mulling over in their minds that shortly, this is their last day on earth...[powerful cerebrate moment]...the clanky Amtraks churning up the blue/white sea while racing towards the Line of Departure...all hell is about to blast 'you' out of the water..."Lock-N-Load"...we are crossing the Line of Departure" is shouted out!!!...the US Navy's club-wielding police force is turned loose to do their sworn duty to kill every Japanese Marine on another blood/soaked and palm fringed island...another gem, Widmark telling the Colonel who now wants prisoners, that once you teach Marines to hate and kill the enemy [take no prisoners]...it's almost impossible to reverse an ingrained trait for the lust of killing...the more we kill the longer we remain alive, even when the battle-scarred Marines do capture the enemy as ordered, most want to kill every son of Nippon as expressed by [Pretty Boy and Palance]....a multitude of these Marines have been through so much from Guadalcanal, Tawara, Saipan, Pelilieu, etc...that, they will never survive this endless of endless warfare...Widmark expresses this manic/depressive minsdet very clearly [a very great actor]..in real life Widmark's brother was KIA in the Pacific war...[it preyed on him his whole life]...young Bob Wagner was a Marine reservist in real life...the bellicose Colonel [Richard Boone]was for real, always chewing out non/conformist Sgt Reginald Gardiner for being out of uniform and his outspoken word, but once the rocket base is pinpointed the good Colonel gives Gardnier the OK, and Reggie gets the last word in with, "See, just give the Colonel some time, before he sees it our way"...great punchline!!...star studded cast blends in for a smothering display of Marine camraderie within the enlisted ranks...this Marine movie says alot about the protracted island invasions that dotted the looong road back to Tokyo... and ALL six [6] Marine Divisions FMF gave the Japanese a taste of their own medicine with accrued interest, I kid you naught, indeed..."Give 'em Hell"...."Gung Ho"....SSGT CHRIS SARNO-USMC FMF

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A tribute to the Marine Corps and their campaigns against the Japanese in the South Pacific...

The hate content in war films which had up to this point been reserved mainly for the Germans was now temporarily re-channeled in the direction of the Japanese, and the Pacific War was revived in aggressive patriotism in films like Allan Dwan's "Sands of Iwo Jima," Fritz Lang's "I Shall Return, " Nicolas Ray's "Flying Leathernecks," and Lewis Milestone's "Hall of Montezuma."

The focus of Milestone's film is the capture of a site on which the enemy have set up rocket sites... A Marine patrol is sent out, with orders to take prisoners and bring them back for interrogation...

Much of the movie's appeal arises from its future ensemble cast... There is Richard Widmark, a former schoolteacher who fights the war with his head in a vice; Karl Malden, the medical corpsman who knows what psychological migraine is; Reginald Gardiner, the British-born sergeant, who can speak Japanese; Robert Wagner, the young radio man who kept pestering his fellow soldiers; Skip Homeier, the hotshot 'pretty boy' who is in a hurry to get home; Jack Palance, the protective and grateful boxer who wants his pal as his future manager; Richard Hylton, the student who handled fear once; Richard Boone, the desperate colonel who insists on taking prisoners; Neville Brand, the strong sergeant blinded during a bomb attack; and Bert Freed, the best fighter man but before and after "the no-good money burnin', gin-drinkin' horsehead..."

All the characters solved their hang-ups with bouts of heroism, and Widmark was on hand to lead the last attack with a rousing battle-cry "Give 'em hell!"

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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