Il grande uno rosso

Penetrating, outstanding war drama that depicts, with care and well constructed plot divided in many simultaneous dramas, the lives, hopes, sorrows and, before all, the profound loneliness of a group of young and inexperient soldiers in the WW2 and the friendship and deep respect between them and their old and calused sergeant, a superb performance by Martin.

Maybe the movie is too overlong which reduces its impact but it's extremely rewarding to see this one.

I give this a 7 (seven).

This review is on the "reconstructed" DVD, a version that came out several years ago, adding 49 minutes to the original 1980 movie. (The film runs 162 minutes, not 158 as stated on the IMDb title page.)

The "old" version was very good, and this newer version makes the film even better. Either way, you have a solid war movie.

For men - and that's who will primarily watch this movie because it's a guy's flick with no romance and no women leads - this keeps the action coming, but without overdoing it. You can different kinds of action scenes, too, not just people shooting at one another.

I also appreciated the photography. It's a good visual movie. The added footage looked sharper and clearer than the previously shown, but either way it was nicely filmed and directed. Of course, the director is the famous Sam Fuller, who did a number of tough film noirs, among other things.

Speaking of tough, the person who makes this movie a notch above average is Lee Marvin. He is just excellent as the tough-on-the-outside-but-soft-hearted underneath commanding officer, known only as "The Sergeant." With his deep voice and weathered face, Marvin makes for an effective leader of tough guys. The language was much milder in here than you find in more modern films, although it can be crude in a few spots. There are no f-words and about seven usages of the Lord's name in vain. However, there are a number of sexual references, some crude but, hey, that's "guy talk." All the young soldiers were good, too. It was especially interesting to see baby-faced Star Wars' star, Mark Hamill, playing one of the soldiers in the unit called "The Big Red One."

The story with narration by one of the soldiers, tells of Marvin and his handful of men who travel and do battle from North Africa to Sicily, then Italy, the beaches of Normandy on D- Day and into Germany in addition to a few other memorable stops such as "an insane asylum."

It's long, but I never found it boring and the men never stay too long in one spot.

"The Big Red One" is an episodic war movie from maverick American filmmaker Samuel Fuller. Having only seen "Shock Corridor" from the director's oeuvre, I didn't know what to expect from him this time around. It becomes obvious pretty quickly that Fuller was never going to be a mainstream filmmaker. There's something about his style that's really off-putting. You empathise with the camera, not the actors. It's like they're at odds with each other.

This is not a bad thing, as you can tell from the enthusiastic reception Fuller's movies have gotten here on IMDB. But "The Big Red One" is also drastically cut down from the original print Fuller had, and I wonder if that's why it feels so disjointed.

Of course, it is supposed to be episodic, but I don't know. I didn't really get into it.

This film is really about the experiences that Sam Fuller had during WWII. It is a bit dated, and the low budget really shows, but SF clearly did the best with what he had, and it stands as a great monument on war from a director who was really there.

All of the characters are very likeable, and well acted by Lee Marvin, Mark Hamill, Robert Carradine, and company. The movie is fiction but influenced by real events. Many of the scenes, especially one involving a group of older sicilian women who cook a big meal for the squad, ring very true, since a fiction writer would obviously try and spice them up--the film is very honest, and it is good that Fuller left this story for us. I also like how it ends on a positive, optimistic note.

"The real glory of war is surviving."

I have seen this film quite a few times and have always been somewhat puzzled about it. There was no doubt that it had some of the most emotive scenes of any war film but seemed fractured. At times there seemed to be far more realism in it's morality than other films which was understandable since Sam Fuller actually served with The Big Red One at this time so much of it is a first hand account of events and attitudes. I have now read some of the background to the making of the film,I think in the L.A. Times,which now makes sense of the flaws in the film. Apparently Sam Fuller's budget was cut to the minimum by the studios after a regime change and the original screenplay as shot was hacked to death by the same studio against Fuller's wishes. This was not the film he wanted to make but he made it. And it was not the film that he shot as is indicated by the very complete screenplay notes he made. I think it is Richard Schickel, the noted reviewer of Time magazine, who has laboured to find the missing outtakes and to put the film together in its complete form with over 40 minutes added to the length. Apparently this more complete cut significantly improves the film and adheres to Sam Fullers screenplay more accurately. This new cut is now playing to limited audiences and, hopefully, will be available on DVD. It must be emphasized that this is not the film that Fuller originally wanted to make as the budget was cut by 75%. Some of the comments made by other reviewers on these pages are valid as to authenticity specifically in battle scenes. But Fuller did not have the budget that both the Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan had. It will be interesting to see the new cut. Hopefully it will flesh out what could have been one of the greatest Second World War films.