Hell Squad

This no-frills account of a squad of GI's, separated from their outfit in the North African campaign during World War 11 peels away the glamor of soldiering and leaves one only with its desperation and misery. Yet, it is not depressing, as it shows how human beings go on in the face of apparent hopelessness. The climax is gripping. Ironically, I came upon the film by accident, since there was an error in the program listing in the paper.

This "B" war film has "A" credibility for realistic drama in war.

A typical motif done well. The motif is a small unit of soldiers stuck behind enemy lines.

There is a lot going for this film. A good script is the chief reason. We get some realistic emotion in a situation of deadly danger that is no game.

Best of all, we get a "roll the dice" or "let the cards fall where they may fall" story here. There's no "contrived Hollywood predictability of bullets only finding good guys and underlings. There's no "ticket" to immortality by being the usual creep, officer, or man with a secret that means a bullet can't find you. The bullet or grenade can hit anyone at any time.

In other words, the viewer doesn't feel like the writer and director is prancing around behind the hill. It's a "natural and uncontrived" chain of events.

Which sets this apart from the usual Hollywood formula movie that owned the industry after about 1965. Cleverly done, which is probably why the bubble boys won't care for this one.

A lot better than expected for an ultra-cheap war movie that was filmed on weekends by writer-producer-director Burt Topper. Wally Compo has the key role as a private in a small troop of soldiers separated from their unit whose numbers seem to grow smaller with every sand dune that they pass. Hell Squad has all the things low budget movies usually lack - decent script, passable acting and some tense situations.

It's another of those short features produced in the late 1950s about WWII dog tired dog soldiers slogging along (here, notionally Tunisia), facing boredom and danger and the occasional German Master Race officer. Burt Topper, who wrote as well as directed, clearly had something in the back of his head that he could get into the script, because there are some moments of clear tension, despite my annoyance at the dead cliches and the blaring and obvious score.

Perhaps it was a matter of the performers being better than the material. As is usual fr an AIP production, the cast is populated by people whose name no one would recognize at the time, people who could be hired for little money. Usually I recognize a name or three, but here they were all strangers to me, most of them performers who have three credits and then silence. Perhaps they went back to the theater and made a living. Perhaps they gave up and went home to run the family business. Hollywood is a magnet that attracts far more good actors than it can use.

The North African campaign was over by May 1943 not June.