The Bold and the Brave

Mickey Rooney received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in this movie which presents a small group of American soldiers in Italy in 1944.

Three types of soldiers are presented here, based on their reactions to their first encounter with the German enemy while in Italy.

Rooney is the energetic and a happy go-with-the-punches soldier.

Wendell Corey is a fairly well balanced soldier but is unable to kill the enemy when he is faced with the possibility.

Don Taylor is a superman in battle situations but has trouble when faced with normal human spiritual matters, no doubt stunted by his upbringing.

Nicole Maurey is a local Italian prostitute, forced to sell herself for survival.

After a fallow period during the early fifties Mickey Rooney established himself as a fine straight actor, a position consolidated in this otherwise very ordinary war film set in Italy in 1944 to which Rooney not only contributed the title song but collected an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

The best performance is as usual provided by Wendall Corey with his regular quiet authority. Don Taylor - soon to give up acting in favour of directing - is strictly speaking the star as a Holy Joe who's heart is broken by a brunette Nichole Maurey pretending to be an Italian as a local girl with whom he shares a glass of buttermilk before it all ends in tears.

I recently viewed this movie after not seeing it in several decades. It had always stuck out in my memory as one of the best of the 1950s war movies.

The writing was excellent, a great story of men in war, the brave, the bold, the fallen, the fallen women, and the pious men. The crux of the plot concerns a religious zealot that disdains alcohol, women and gambling, yet feels no empathy at blowing away the enemy. God and Country I guess. As the story progresses, he feels betrayed by his comrades.

The problem I had, was that during the first half of the movie, the acting seemed stiff and all but Rooney seemed to be over-acting...to the point of parody. Then about half way thru, things pick up and so does the acting. I wonder, since Rooney is "un-credited" as one of the directors, perhaps he stepped in to pull this one out of the fire.

The crap game is legendary, and the final action is quite good. The ballad sung over the opening credits and at the conclusion are an added bonus.

While not quite as good as "Attack"(1956) or "The Steel Helmet"(1951) this is still fun 50s war stuff.

I remember seeing this at a drive-in back when it first came out with my cousin's family in Rochester. This is one of those films that really sticks with you. At the time however some of the more adult themes of the film went completely over my head.

The Bold And The Brave focuses on three soldiers in the Italian campaign. Wendell Corey plays an amiable drifter type who in civilian life was a lawyer, but never practiced much law as he was married to a rich woman. He's not sure if he has the right stuff.

Corey's best pal is Mickey Rooney who got an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He's a cheerful extrovert who lives for his off duty moments. He's got a marvelous scene cleaning out the company in a crap game. In the end though, that truly does him in.

Both are commanded by Don Taylor who is their uptight model GI Joe sergeant. In war he's great, but has some issues in his personal life. They call him preacher and it's suggested ever so gently that he's been celibate. Corey tries to fix him up with Nicole Maurey who also gives a great performance as a girl who does what she can to survive the war.

The Bold And The Brave has for some reason been lost for years. Hopefully it will be broadcast and a new generation can appreciate a fine underrated classic.

This is a pure drama for me, not a war feature. War is only used as a kind of setting, nothing more. It is a character study, behavior analysis, psycholigical surgery, very interesting to watch. Lewis Foster gives here is only "war" film, him who is rather specialized in adventure movies. It is rare and emerged only ten years ago on the market; before that it slept in some vault.... Good performances though Wendell Corey seems to be too old for the role. But it is not new in war films; see for instance the Duke in war films. It is nearly laughable. This film can be seen as a topic about different things including bravery, the definition of bravery. For me, some one is brave when he is at first scared and finally wins over his scare, his fright. Some one suicidal, or some one who ignores fear, is not brave. No. But that's only my opinion. And it's surprising to see those two parts in the film, the first where Don taylor's character seem to be ankward, the dude whom his pals "help" him finding a gal, to summarize, the poor good guy. And in the second part of the film, the war part, forget this Don Taylor's good guy, focus instead on Wendell Corey's one, who in the first part, was shown as a bit coward yes, but also the not so sympathetic guy who laughed at his commanding officer who fell in love with the prostitute. It's very unusual in a film to see characters places changing so rapidly during the story; one takes the place of the other.