Les vainqueurs

Carl Foreman's "The Victors" is extraordinary for two reasons:

1) it emphasizes the characters over the action

2) while being a "spot the star" flick, this is a film made up of smaller stars.

Among the "smaller" stars in this, we have Vince Edwards, George Hamilton, Albert Finney, Peter Fonda, Eli Wallach and George Peppard. Perhaps they are not as big as the ones who appeared in the popular war epics of the time, but I think it benefits from this approach. The film is a bunch of low-key stories strung together by the war and these low-key actors are perfect for this approach.

There are action scenes. It wouldn't be a war film without them. But after a while, I got tired of action scene after action scene and I appreciated a film that let us get to know these soldiers and how they felt about the war and life. It predates Terrence Malick's "The Thin Red Line" by about 33 years, but it's just as effective.

Carl Foreman was famously blacklisted during the 1950s and only now is his work appreciated. His credits include "The Bridge Over The River Kwai" and "The Guns of Navarone" and in this, his directorial debut, he demonstrates the skill and drama of the earlier pictures along with the character studies. The result: a richly textured film, one of 1963's best. If only more people knew about it. Columbia, if you're reading this, release it on tape and DVD NOW!

**** out of 4 stars

I saw The Victors on the big screen in 1964 and its impact has never left me. I saw a cut version on TV a few years ago, and while forty years of film watching and life experience made the movie seem a little heavy-handed and sentimental to me, it still packed a punch. It is not a perfect film - there is the occasional bad moment, and some techniques that were startling in 1963, particularly the newsreels and the hand-held camera used in the opening scene, are now familiar.

Nevertheless, The Victors should serve as a needed lesson to "kids today" that WWII was not fun, not easy, and not "an adventure." Beating the Nazis was a grinding, miserable task that was paid for in suffering and loss. (As for concentration camps, a previous reviewer missed the scene in which one is indeed liberated.) Unusually, the film shows the effect of war on women and children, as well as on the fighting men. It's also remarkable that the movie was released years before the "disillusionment" of the Vietnam War. Had more Americans seen The Victors they might have had a better idea of what the nation was getting itself into. Watch The Longest Day or Patton, then watch The Victors and then decide which seems the most "true to life." If you don't know what "symbolism" means, the final episode, filmed at the height of the Cold War, and its epigraph by World War I poet Wilfred Owen, will show you.

The opening credits suggest the historical relationship between World war II and World War I. They also should remind everyone that there were plenty of Black GIs in WWII, and that Uncle Sam didn't win the war all by himself.

There are moments of real humanity here. The Vince Edwards episode was considered "controversial" in 1963, and in today's film culture may actually seem banal, but it's about understanding as well as loneliness. The memorable sequence involving George Peppard and the English family is wonderfully understated.

Somebody should explain why this occasionally flawed but excellent and provocative film has never been released to home video.

What ever happened to this wonderful movie? When I was at the University of Oregon in the late 60s and early 70s it was shown on local t.v. in Eugene several times. I have not seen it since but it has lingered in my memory. What a great film.

One scene that has stayed with me all these years is the one with the dog. A new recruit shows up and joins a group of tired and war-weary vets. The new recruit has a young puppy and wants to bring it along. The puppy is cute and because I had watched a ton of American war films I thought that everyone would embrace the dog, make it their mascot and have a merry time as they wasted Krauts in the Hurtgen Forrest but the vets will not allow the dog to join them. What the vets know and the new guy doesn't is that they are headed for a place where only those with a hard heart survive. The Hurtgun is no place for pups or children. Only a certain type of individual could possibly survive there. You can see it in the vets that they would like to indulge the new guy and his dog, but they know better. They make the recruit leave the dog as they board the truck headed for the front. The puppy starts following the truck as it pulls away and the innocent new guy gets all excited and calls to him as it trails the truck. A vet pulls out his M-1 and shots the dog dead. Another vet turns to the new guy who is stunned in disbelief and says "it took a soldier to do that".

This movie, this scene and this line have stayed in my mind and its been over 30 years since last I've seen it.

I saw this movie many years ago, and still remember it. I'd like to see it on video. The movie has a surreal feel to it.... but, I imagine that anyone actually involved in the madness of fighting a modern war feels the surrealness of the movie a very faint immitation of the surrealness of war. The typical movie presents a view of an event, and one has the feeling that all that is significant about the event has been recorded and presented in the movie, but in "The Victors" it is clear that what is being presented is just a peek at reality .. the whole story is unknown, unknowable.... Just as in life we usually feel as if we understand what's going on around us and are acting in a perfectly rational manner, when in fact we are each very small players on a stage and we are being blown about like leaves by forces we don't even know exist.

One of the most extraordinarily intelligent films ever made, this epic from Carl Foreman (High Noon, Bridge Over River Kwai, Guns of Navarone) follows the fortunes of an American platoon during WWII.

Plenty of well-known stars (Peppard, Fonda, Finney) shine in solid performances while the B&W film compliments the moody cinematography.

It's not anti-war - more a study of friendship, love and prejudice intensified under stress (Casualties of War indeed). Episodes of deep pathos contrast with intermittent feelgood factors - although some of the intended irony is a little heavy (primarily because it was aimed at the American viewer).

Unlike Private Ryan and similar Yank-only trash, it is one of the few WWII films to actively feature the participation of other allied nations, notably France, Russia and India, and the effects on the civilians of Belgium, England, Italy and Germany.

My favourite scene is when the character played by George Peppard is waiting for a bus in the pouring rain while on leave in England. A working class family invite him into their home until the bus arrives and their hospitality is such that he comfortably falls asleep on a chair by the fire. On finally catching the bus he discovers the family have placed a 10 shilling note in his top pocket. I think this is one of the most touching moments in the history of film.

In the most famous scene the platoon are ordered to witness a deserter executed by firing squad somewhere in a snowy landscape of France, while over-running from earlier newsreel footage, the soundtrack is playing 'Have yourself a Merry Little Xmas'. Very moving.

America should be proud of this one.

Kevin Molloy TV Producer London, England