Halls of Montezuma

Many war movies just following WWII were of the John Wayne tough guy type. However, Halls of Montezuma, is refreshing in that it looks in depth at the psychology of the soldier. Really at how men change when laying there lives on the line. The cinematography was also well done when you consider this movie was made half a century ago. You won't see the blood and guts as in a Saving Private Ryan, but the movie may make you think twice before signing up for active duty.

I was surprised that Halls of Montezuma was not an adapted play since a great deal of the action takes place in a cave that serves as a battalion headquarters where Colonel Richard Boone is trying to extract information from prisoners.

That in itself wasn't easy because the Japanese were not known for surrendering. Boone gives an order to try and take prisoners on this landing on an unnamed Pacific island.

Richard Widmark's company finds a few of them and it's a rough go and several members of Widmark's command die in the mission. The Japanese are firing a lot of rockets from a hill and the bombing from planes doesn't do any good. Before the big push towards that hill can be made those rockets have to be dealt with.

A lot of promising young players from 20th Century Fox were in Widmark's platoon like Robert Wagner, Jack Palance, Richard Hylton, Skip Homeier, Martin Milner. Some make it and some don't. There are several flashback sequences showing these guys in their civilian lives and earlier in the war.

At the headquarters there's also quite an assortment, Jack Webb a war correspondent, Philip Ahn an articulate Japanese prisoner who is a baseball player in civilian life and looking decidedly out of place there is the urbane Reginald Gardiner replete with cigarette holder. He's along for the ride because he's an expert on Japanese culture and psychology and speaks the language.

Halls of Montezuma is a good, not a great war film. Three performances do stand out. Karl Malden as the veterinarian now serving as a medic and career marine Bert Freed and his sergeant Neville Brand.

This is one of a slew of WW2 films made in the late 40's and early 50's, some better than others. This is definitely one of the better ones. This film features a whole bunch of future stars, such as Richard Widmark, Karl Malden, Richard Boone, Jack Palance, Robert Wagner, Jack Webb and Martin Milner. Most of them hadn't completely honed their skills yet and a couple of the performances are either a bit wooden (Malden, Wagner and Webb) or overdone (Widmark). The technology is very primitive by today's standards, yet this film holds up well. The acting aside, it seems that every effort was made to make the film as realistic as it could be. In that respect, this film is much better than some of the others of the same era. There are a lot of films from this era. If you choose to watch only a few of them, make sure this is one of the few.

At age 10, in 1960, I watched the "Halls of Montezuma" movie on television. In 1968, I found myself in the U.S. Marine Corps serving as a machine-gunner in the infantry. Sometimes, movies have a way of becoming true reality; and, because the movie gave me a little insight and understanding of the brutality of war, in some way, I owe a debt of gratitude to the movie.

One of the rare american war movies with a certain sense of

reality: Richard Widmark as a platoon leader conquering the

pacific island of okinawa. From the long waiting time before the

attack on the battleship, to the landing operation on the shores of

okinawa, to the painful losses of his men, we follow these serious

looking americans. Their faces seem motionless and two of the

officers, including Widmark, have psychosomatic war syndroms.

The killing is no fun in this movie, the dying is no fun to watch. All in

all, not very entertaining, but a lesson in war, much more realistic

than later US-movies on the same topic.