One Who Came Back

George Kritzman narrates his journey back from a hill in Korea after being wounded out of service in this documentary short subject.

For 1951, with its dry recitation of facts, this must have been a shocker in the movie theaters. The elaborate mechanism of getting a wounded soldier from the battlefield to home is portrayed for the first time I know of. I believe it includes the earliest mention of Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals in cinema, eighteen years before M.A.S.H. hit the movie screens.

Most significantly, it made clear the process of the return and the fact that it did not end when the plane touched down. Veteran's Administration budgets went up and my mother spent twenty years as a volunteer at these hospitals.

One Who Came Back (1951)

*** (out of 4)

Oscar-nominated short takes a look at U.S. Army Corporal George Kritzman who recounts his third time being wounded in the Korean War and we then see his long road to recovery. This film was clearly made to show that the Veteran's Administration needed a lot of help because there was so much work that needed to be done after a soldier was wounded. The film does a very good job at showing what happens once a soldier is wounded and how much work goes into not just saving his life but then getting him back to as close to normal as one can. I thought the film offered up some very good cinematography and especially some of the shots during the operation. It's also worth noting that this has to be one of the earliest films of its kind to actually show the full process of getting wounded to making your way back home. I think the narration at times because a tad bit over-dramatic not because the material itself isn't dramatic but simply because I think they use way too many words when seeing is much more powerful than anything we actually hear.