Jóvenes y valientes

Actually, I didn't find this movie as terrible as you might think. Yes, it has numerous flaws, and moves slow (even for an 84-minute movie). It doesn't compare favorably to other war / action movies of the time. Still, it's one of a comparatively few movies made about the Korean War, and the plot contains several twists to keep it interesting and keep you wondering about the final outcome. I would only suggest that THE YOUNG AND THE BRAVE is more appropriate for children (7-14 years old), who will enjoy and understand the relatively simple and understandable plot, not be confused by too many characters, and possibly identify with the young Han. Adults, on the other hand, will be easily distracted by the movie's flaws and find its "sanitized" story perhaps less enjoyable. Overall, through, it's not a bad movie on the scale of some supposed "classics." A good family movie for a cold Friday night around the VCR. Then put the kids to bed and watch SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.

In the "woke" Hollywood of today, a movie showing the communist North Koreans as murderous would not be produced. In fact, it's hard to believe anyone would try in 1963.

But someone did try and did an excellent job.

It begins with a good script and is made excellent because of the cast.

Rory Calhoun beautifully underplays his role as the sergeant trying to lead a small group of escaped prisoners out of North Korea back to their own lines.

Along the way, they pick up an orphaned little boy, played by the youngster who stole all the acting honors, Manuel Padilla, Jr.

He has played other and different foreign kids, most famously "Jai" in the Ron Ely TV series version of Tarzan.

He was still young, only 52, when he died.

William Bendix was one of those great Hollywood fixtures who played so many different roles, from vicious bad guy to lovable and avuncular types.

Perhaps "The Young and the Brave" is not really a "classic," despite being presented on TCM, but it's an awfully good movie, reminding viewers that U. S. soldiers were the good guys more often than not, and that often they had to overcome their own "leaders" to not only win but far too frequently to survive.

Korea was the second of three wars begun because the "leadership" of the northern part of the country wanted to invade and conquer the southern part.

It's another reminder that all governments are rotten but some are worse than others.

And it's a reminder that, no matter that it's the men on the front lines, doing the killing and being killed, innocent women and children are equally, and even more unforgivably, victims of the horror and brutality.

Rory Calhoun has seldom done a better job, and all his co-performers have given us a movie I can easily recommend.

What can you say about a movie that has a Mexican playing a Korean kid, that looks as if it were shot on somebody's farm somewhere, and that dredges up every cliche out of every mediocre war movie ever made. Amazingly, this cheap junk has a pretty good cast (Rory Calhoun, William Bendix, Richard Jaekal, Richard Arlen and John Agar). However, a movie that has Calhoun yelling, "Our planes are coming in," and diving to the ground, without ever LOOKING at the sky, is pretty bad, by just about anybody's standards.

20 years after Guadalcanal Diary, Bendix and Jaeckel are reunited for one of the most tired and cliched war movie scripts I've ever been unfortunate enough to have to sit through, The pacing is glacial. The cliches are ridiculous and the three main footsoldiers range between about 42 and 55 years in age -- in Korea! Why even make a Korean War movie in 1963 if you have nothing new to say? If this film had anything to say, it would be hard to find it amidst all the cliches. Manuel Padilla Jr. does a decent enough job keeping Han from being too syrupy. And, Bendix, Calhoun, and Jaeckel are all certainly earnest enough. The production values are shoddy, and Jaeckel looks embarrasses in every scene in which he appears.

I nominate this hideous fiasco for the IMDB bottom 100.

There are two dogs in this film, the enemy kills both of them with the adults showing zero concern. The canines are the only points of interest. Better to have dropped the war and kept the doggies. Rates a 2/10 unless you`re a devotee of animal films then a 6/10.