Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Binding: VHS Tape EAN: 9780790701127 Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC ISBN: 079070112X Label: Warner Home Video Manufacturer: Warner Home Video Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: Warner Home Video Release Date: May 08, 2001 Running Time: 149 minutes Studio: Warner Home Video Theatrical Release Date: February 02, 1955 Sales Rank: 21434
Amazon.com: The most interesting--and entertaining--aspect of this long, episodic World War II drama is that it marked the debut of one Justus E. McQueen, who subsequently took the name of the good ol' Arkansas boy he played in the movie: L.Q. Jones. He's only one of eight or nine Marine recruits who divide the screen time with commanding officer Van Heflin and James Whitmore as a lifer sergeant named Mac, "just Mac," who ramrods their squad and also delivers the movie's overbearing narration. Unfortunately, the narration is necessary to maintain continuity as the CinemaScope production galumphs its way from rounding up the melting-pot cast, to seeing them through basic training and sundry, mostly amatory misadventures in San Diego, to further training in New Zealand, and finally to baptism of fire on Guadalcanal.
Trouble is, among the recruits only McQueen/Jones (whose job is mostly comic relief) and Aldo Ray (as a brawling lumberjack who's never known family life) have any charisma or acting chops--and that's not forgetting Tab Hunter, whose matinee-idol status at the time does not speak well for the '50s. Battle Cry is also a cardinal example of Hollywood's penchant for buying big, lusty, profane bestsellers (by Leon Uris, in this case) and then euphemizing all the lustiness and profanity to appease the censors. Raoul Walsh, the poet laureate of lowdown gusto, does what he can in the circumstances, and as one of the first guys ever to direct a widescreen movie (1930's The Big Trail), he makes the battle scenes roar. --Richard T. Jameson
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Don't bother with this one...
Much of "Battle Cry" seems to be built around dialogue between male actors and female actors decrying fictional relationships on the sound stages of Hollywood - Which basically makes it a soap opera. ... Read More
Rating: - Disappointing adaptation of Leon Uris' Marine novel
Based on a novel by Leon Uris, Battle Cry tries to show the life of a Marine outside of the action. In the months following Pearl Harbor, thousands of young Americans volunteer in the armed forces ready ... Read More
Rating: - This a great movie
I have the VHS version, so decided to see if I could find a copy on DVD. I was very glad to see it is now available on DVD. I really liked this movie...and it is very special to me in that it was my 1954 boot ... Read More
Rating: - Maybe you have to be a Marine
I served in the Marine Corps in the 1990s and I find more that I can relate to in this movie than in more recent films. I tried to watch Jarhead but it didnt ring true. Yet this film does. The cameradrie, it's ... Read More
Rating: - Aldo Ray and Van Heflin are outstanding
I can't help it but I love this movie. Yes - it is a film about the Marines fighting in the Pacific in WWII but - surprise- there are very few battle scenes. 95% of the film is about recruiting the marines and the ... Read More
- Don't bother with this one...
- Disappointing adaptation of Leon Uris' Marine novel
- This a great movie