A Field of Honor

I saw this little gem at the USC film school, a very good student film by now famous and excellent director Robert Zemeckis. A majority of the film is screwball comedy, as an ex-soldier encounters many dangers in the small town he lives.

If you ever get the chance to see it, don't miss it. You'll laugh your socks off

This is a film made by Robert Zemeckis along with help from his writing partner, Robert Gale. However, it was not intended as a feature...just a short student film, as the pair were in graduate school and this was apparently their Masters project at USC. The two later went on to make various films together...some bad ("1941") and some very good ("Back to the Future").

When the film begins with some guy going in to a doctor's office. Immediately, it's clear that the men are not professionals and the acting is terrible at times...but again, this was NOT intended as high art! And so it goes throughout the film...with acting that clearly isn't polished.....though you expect this with most student films.

The story is nutty and not especially deep...set to the music from "The Great Escape". An ex-soldier is released from a sanitarium and on his way home, he meets nothing but dangerous loopy people. On the bus, one passenger begins punching people for no reason and another begins shooting wildly and demands the driver take the bus to Cuba! When he finally gets home, things are even nuttier...if that's possible.

This clearly shows much of the humor the pair would use in "1941". Thankfully, they did improve their work and try something other than crazed soldier stories. It's pretty bad...really violent and kinda dumb. BUT, for guys in their 20s, they have to start some place...and it is interesting to watch simply to see where it all began.

So, despite the 2, it IS a film worth seeing...particularly by film students and the curious.

This film is really just a taste of what Zemeckis later brought to American Cinema - a unique comedic style and storytelling ability that leaves me in awe. A great short, truly remarkable. Really makes me want to see "The Lift." Unfortunately, I don't think it's available...

Made in 1973 when America was pulling out of Vietnam, this film must have gone down like a cyanide pill.

The Roberto Begnini-like protagonist gets out of a sanatorium. The tone is set in the doctor's office. Broad caricatures in line with Zemeckis' tastes as seen in "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and "Used Cars".

The director ramps up the slapstick action with car crashes and shoot-outs and then takes a turn towards some very uncomfortable violence. The resolution though predictable, left me with a feeling of relief that it was over.

It reminded me of two anecdotes about the movie "1941" for which Zemeckis co-wrote the screenplay. In one scene a father (played in the film by Ned Beatty, has a talk with his daughter, who is going to a USO dance. He reminds her that the young servicemen she will be meeting will soon be shipping out to parts unknown to fight for their country and possibly to die. They are of an age where they are only thinking of one thing. He concludes his talk by slapping his daughter on the shoulder and telling her to make sure they have a good time. The odd and twisted suggestion being that she put out for them.

The second story goes that Zemeckis wanted to end the movie with a coda. After the hubbub of the ruined USO show, he would have had a short scene set aboard the "Enola Gay", the bomber that dropped the Atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Cut to the inside where the bomber leans over his sights. As he leans back we recognize the young dancer whose chances at a Hollywood contract were ruined by the Japanese submarine attack in the film. "Thats for the USO!" he crows as he drops the bomb.

And that's the biting humour Zemeckis had early in his career that you find in this short film.