El amante de la muerte

I was a Steve McQueen fan long before he was a major megastar. A couple of years after this movie was made, I met a really nice, shy girl who was also a big fan of his. Scarlette even had an autographed photo! One night we saw The War Lover together at a drive-in. We were both such fans that we actually WATCHED most of the movie!!!

This is a great morality play. Yes, there are some major faults in the screen play, a few really corny plot lines and it bends the original John Hersey book's literary track a bit, but it still has a tightly woven script, with a steady pace and a clear moral message. No matter how good you are at your job, your moral compass is the only thing that will ultimately guide your life. Buzz lost or never had a moral compass. Consequently he was headed nowhere but just didn't know it. His life ended abruptly, and in a way that denounced his raw talent as a pilot, because a bankrupt soul cannot endure.

In the great Oscar winning best picture Patton, Karl Malden as Omar Bradley explains the difference between himself and George C. Scott. Malden is a professional soldier trained to do a job, whereas Scott just lives for the action because he loves it. That's what Steve McQueen is as a hotshot bomber pilot who has a crew of Karl Maldens who just want to do a job and get home alive.

Oddly enough a year after The War Lover came out Steve McQueen would play another hotshot pilot in The Great Escape. A pilot who's been grounded and temporarily enjoying enemy hospitality. I wonder how the two McQueens from The War Lover and The Great Escape might have viewed each other.

McQueen's co-pilot Robert Wagner dislikes McQueen's living on the edge style though he knows this guy has the skill to back up his brag and has done so. But things could be going further south in their relationship as McQueen makes a play for proper British woman Shirley Anne Field whom Wagner likes as well.

It's an interesting role that McQueen has and he pulls it off. He's not a nice person, but you can't help rooting for him. Especially in that last close run thing he attempts at the close of the film.

The War Lover is a good war picture and will satisfy the fans of Steve McQueen who are still legion in this world.

Aviation author Martin Caiden (his books were the basis for the film "Marooned" and the t.v show "The Six Million Dollar Man") published a book entitled "Everything But The Flak" that detailed the efforts to revive three Navy PB-1 Flying Forts and the ensuing flight adventure of moving them across the Atlantic to England for the making of "The War Lover" which is a "must read" for those interested in the making of this film. He accompanied the flight crews and although his larger-than-life account of their hijinks (rumbling with Soviets in the airport in Greenland, being locked up by Interpol in Portugal on suspicion of smuggling illicit warplanes - after all these three B-17s had active gun turrets) must be taken with a grain of salt, the guy sure could spin a great yarn! The book is probably WAY out of print but is well worth seeking out as it gives some idea of the difficulty of reactivating three WW II bombers years before the warbird revival got underway. Unfortunately, due to import/export duties in England in the early 1960s, Columbia Pictures scrapped two of the three Fortresses after filming was completed and only one has survived, used for promotion of the film before being passed onto other hands.

The movie itself has lots of B-17 action of the planes taxiing around the airfield prior to mission take-off that is frequently edited out for television broadcast to save time for commercials or to fit into a specific airtime envelope. If it airs uncut, notice the patchy paint on the Fortress noses as three airframes portray a much larger squadron, with nose art changed several times.

Mark Sublette, Falls Church, Virginia

"The War Lover" isn't the greatest movie ever made, but it has some very good elements. The scenes of airmen inside B-17 bombers are excellent, with very good views of flight uniforms, equipment, flying instruments and the cramped conditions. The fearful aspects of aerial combat are also shown quite effectively. Some of the sound effects are muffled, but the general experience of flying on bombing missions over enemy territory is well portrayed.

Steve McQueen gives an excellent performance. While his character "Buzz" Rickson is often arrogant and amoral, McQueen is mesmerizing. He also nicely shows how Rickson has moments of compassion towards others. Its good to see a character like Rickson depicted in a way that's not completely black-and-white. Robert Wagner does a very good job as McQueen's co-pilot, a man with more decency and quiet character than Rickson, but who is also flawed like all of us. Unfortunately, while Shirley Anne Field is beautiful and shows some charm, she does a poor job of acting.

"The War Lover" is especially good at showing the toll of war, and how men of various characters and backgrounds are thrown together in the military. And it is very frank about the sexual promiscuity that is often a part of war. While the movie effectively shows these things, it does so in ways that are not as explicit as many movies of today might do.

The editing of "The War Lover" is quite poor at times, with a choppy quality, and minor characters sometimes pop up here and there in a confusing way. Overall, though, the film is very worthwhile for viewers who are interested in character studies and war movies.

I haven't read the John Hersey novel others praise. (I've always liked Hersey's reporting and writing - just missed this one). So I can judge only the movie.

Steve McQueen gives a truly wonderful performance as the sort of guy you want to punch - arrogant, self-absorbed, cruel, conceited. (Of course in life, we read the same of him!). Robert Wagner also gives a wonderful performance - how not to appear a loser when the cruel arrogant one always wins. Shirley Anne Field is absolutely lovely in a very upper class/dreamgirl sort of way.

The movie is quite romantic - you really believe in Wagner-Field as a couple. There is warmth and lust and trust and realism between the two. The movie gives the flavor of love in wartime almost as well as Yanks.

I quite liked the movie- but it seems too short - let us have more of these characters' interactions. They ARE interesting characters at an interesting and dangerous time. I suppose if they'd have taken more from Hersey's novel, it would have felt a more substantial meal.