Processo e morte di un soldato

It's obvious from the remarks in the previous commentaries by others, that none of them were ever in the military. Coburn was portraying a Military Police major (Maj. Dannenberg) serving as the Assistant Provost Marshal - he was not playing an Army attorney. At that time (and still optional today) an officer from any branch in the military can serve as legal council to an accused soldier - you don't have to be a lawyer (JAG Corps). This particular story was true, and is the event in military history that is directly responsible for the creation and implementation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) applicable to all the Armed Forces. The film is accurate and does not portray any Hollywood political bias. It's a great film and a good piece of history. A little known fact: Gen. MacArthur came close to being court martialed for preventing Maj. Dannenberg from appealing Pvt. Leonski's death sentence and conviction, but political allies in Washington intervened.

I recently managed to obtain a videotape of this film from a local sound store although I had seen it many years earlier on TV and have a copy of the soundtrack on vinyl record. Reb Brown gives a splendid and convincing performance as American GI Private Eddie Leonski who strangles three local women in Melbourne over a three week period in May 1942 after a drinking binge. His motives are complex and disturbed, and when finally apprehended, confesses that he just "only wanted their voices". The focus of the film centers on the tensions between American and Australian service personnel and Leonski is portrayed as a necessary sacrificial scapegoat needed by the U.S.Army to restore their credibility with the local population. The film does have it's fictional moments such as the violent shootout between American and Australian servicemen at an unknown railway station which may be a substitution of the true confrontation between these forces in the Battle of Brisbane in November 1942 in which there were actual casualties. There is also the bizarre role of Jon Sidney as General Douglas Macarthur who utters nothing throughout the film excepting a one line sentence near the end. His mouthpiece is Michael Pate playing 2IC Major General Richard Sutherland. Great performances by James Coburn who plays U.S. Major Patrick Dannenburg assigned to defend Leonski, whom he considers insane, at an American Court Martial which has an already pre-conceived judgment on the case and Maurie Fields (as Detective Sergeant Ray Martin)and Bill Hunter (as Detective Fred Adams) who play the tough hard nosed Melbourne cops confronting obstinate American military authority over their rights to exercise civil jurisdiction in the case. Extra great performance by Max Fairchild, better known to many Australians as "Beau" of the television tyre commercials, who plays the swaggering, intimidating and outspoken American Provost Marshal Major Bill Fricks. Belinda Davey who plays civilian PR officer Margot Saunders, well attired in the fashion of the era contributes a good sensual feminine performance to an otherwise male dominated film. The superb musical score by Allan Zavod well threaded into the film captures perfectly the mood and style of the wartime 1940's. This is an absolute gem of a movie well worth watching even if for only it's relatively true historical significance.

In the 1970s Phillipe Mora looked to be a director who was going to deliver the goods. His strange doco BROTHER CAN YOU SPARE A DIME was a 30s jigsaw puzzle of fascinating imagery that needed a commentary. In the 80s he delivered this quite fascinating film. But in the 90s it all went wrong with terrible horror films and now, nothing. In the last week I have seen two James Coburn films. I have never ever been interested in any performance or film of his. Timing has now led me to THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY (1964)...a superb military satire, and DEATH OF A SOLDIER, two films made 20 years apart both with him, both set during WW2... and I have to admit I now have a new found appreciation of Coburn's acting and characterizations. DEATH OF A SOLDIER is a very well made Wartime murder drama with a protagonist played by under rated and over looked he-man Reb Brown. My only vision of him was during BIG Wednesday of all things, when, during a hilarious house party, he cleaned up the gatecrashers in a demolition derby worthy of Hercules visiting Animal House. He is great looking and appears as a cross between Steve McQueen and Ryan O'Neal with a great physique. Here that look is used to great affect as a loudmouth Yankee party bumpkin on leave during WW2 whose alcoholic haze leads to crimes that actually did happen In Melbourne in the mid 40s.. His character is a lot like that of Don Murray, the yahooo-ing cowboy in the Marilyn Monroe film BUS STOP. It is the study of his mentality and it's effect that mires Coburn into a court trial or considerable predicament. The film is excellent and interesting in so many ways, and really flawed in two major things: the clumsy appearance of "General MacArthur" posing and strutting about.... never speaking ..even wearing sunglasses indoors to maintain the image (Jeez!) ....and the overuse of obvious 40s music. If I hear In The Mood again in a 40s film well..... Sadly the film did no biz in its day which I remember had a lot to do with Mora's difficulties with the distributor and with the media, and remains a strange and interesting example of a period piece pic almost 'got right'. Coburn is the best actor there, among Aussie stalwarts... with Maurie Fields being very real. There is far too much swearing.

Watching this film, you could be forgiven for thinking that the battles the Australians and Americans fought against the Japanese were merely practice for the battles they fought against each other on the streets of Melbourne.

"Death of a Soldier" looks at life in Melbourne in 1942 when General MacArthur and the Americans hit town. There were tensions, but the film takes the urban myths of the time and gives them a large dose of anabolic steroids.

The film's strength is in the story of Eddie Leonski the American soldier who strangled three Australian women (The Brownout Murders). After reading "Murder at Dusk" by Ian W. Shaw I was surprised at how close the film stayed to the facts of the case.

James Coburn as Major Patrick Dannenberg has a lot of work to do in the film. Not only does he manage relations between the Americans and the Australians, but also becomes deeply involved in the investigation of the murders. Bill Hunter and Maurie Fields play Australian detectives investigating Leonski's crimes. They do this with a series of poses - standing with their hands in their pockets at the crime scenes or leaning against the bar of the local boozer.

Reb Brown played Eddie Leonski. He's a powerful-looking dude and although his performance seems over-the-top, apparently Eddie Leonski was that crazy. Another impressive performance was delivered by formidable, 6'4" Australian Max Fairchild as MP Major Fricks, a man you would instinctively address as "Sir".

Other reviewers have pointed out that there was always the perception that something like the shootout between American and Australian soldiers had happened. But the origin of the incident would seem to be the one given in the "The Battle of Brisbane" by Peter Thompson, when a U.S. soldier was pursued and shot by Australian police and soldiers after he killed an Australian on a train. Hardly the shootout depicted in the film with casualties rivalling the assault on Buna.

My main criticism of the film is that it's all sensation with very little balance. In reality much of the aggression between the two allies involved brawls between scrappy young men who probably went in for that sort of thing back in civilian life anyway. Similar things happened in New Zealand (The Battle of Manners Street).

Not all Australians felt put upon. 15,000 Australians married Americans (possibly that left some Aussies fuming), but most Australians appreciated that despite gutsy efforts by the Diggers in New Guinea, the situation would have been dire if the U.S. had not arrived in force in 1942.

But perceptions are important and the negative vibe in "Death of a Soldier" probably carries more weight than it should. Maybe Dr. Brendan Nelson, the director of the Australian War Memorial, put things into broader perspective during a speech to the National Press Club in 2013:

"... I've said to the Americans in particular in various roles I've had that not a day goes by in this country where we don't give thanks and gratitude for American sacrifice in this part of the world".

Despite a previous poster's wildly inaccurate and hysterical right-wing rantings (among other things, the fact that he kept calling it a "Hollywood" film when it was in fact made by an Australian company with an Australian director and was shot in Australia, and his claim that the "Hollywood" filmmakers wanted to let Reb Brown's character go free when no such thing was even remotely suggested leads one to suspect that this guy never actually saw the film and is just repeating what he read on some shrill far-right-wing website) this is a very good movie, and is based on an actual event. Eddie Leonski (played to near perfection by Reb Brown) was a brain-damaged (caused by a combination of years of heavy drinking and severe beatings by his parents when he was a child), acutely alcoholic American soldier with obviously severe mental problems who was stationed in Australia during WW II. He murdered several young women during a string of off-duty binges of heavy drinking. When he is finally caught (turned in by a fellow soldier to whom he had inadvertently admitted the murders), provost marshal James Coburn is assigned to his defense. Although not happy about it, once Coburn meets his client it's obvious to even his untrained eye that Leonski has serious mental defects and little if any grip on reality (at one point Coburn wonders how someone like Leonski with such glaringly obvious mental problems managed to even get into the army). When he tries to get Leonski placed in a hospital for the criminally insane, however, he discovers that the authorities--American and Australian--are determined to hang him, their decision based more on political considerations than Leonski's shockingly obvious mental deficiencies. The performances by the two leads and the mostly Australian cast are excellent, with Coburn standing out as usual. A subplot concerning his budding romance with a local girl is unnecessary and doesn't go anywhere anyway, but otherwise this is a crackerjack little picture, a fascinating and little known story told well with first-rate performances by Coburn and Brown. Well worth watching.