A geezer war flick...and not a particularly good one.
I never understood MGM insisting on putting the very rotund and almost elderly Wallace Beery in WWII era war films. While not as ridiculous as Laurel & Hardy in "Great Guns", the films do make it look like the USA was scraping the absolute bottom of the barrel to fill the ranks of the army!! In "The Bugle Sounds", it's not only a 57 year-old Beery, but his commanding officers 63 year-old Lewis Stone and 51 year-old Henry O'Neill! As a result, this seems like a geezer war film!
The film finds Sergeant 'Hap' Doan serving with pride in the US Cavalry....an anachronism considering how modern WWII was. Using horses in combat was akin to using bows & arrows against the Luftwaffe! Still, despite the complete ineffectiveness of the horse in modern combat, Hap is angry that the horses are being replaced by tanks...and he wants to quit....but there's a war on and apparently they needed even the help of hapless Hap...who spends an awful lot of time complaining. In fact, during much of the story, Hap just complains and complains about how he hates tanks and how wonderful horses are. Where does all this go?
This film is very formulaic and I found myself telling my wife how the whole thing would end about halfway through the movie...and I was, sadly, 100% right. And, if you've seen a lot of old movies, it clearly IS predictable. If you haven't, the film might work better for you. It also is very schmaltzy and is seemed dated even by the time the movie was released. Overall, you could easily do better with most of Beery's other films.
The film finds Sergeant 'Hap' Doan serving with pride in the US Cavalry....an anachronism considering how modern WWII was. Using horses in combat was akin to using bows & arrows against the Luftwaffe! Still, despite the complete ineffectiveness of the horse in modern combat, Hap is angry that the horses are being replaced by tanks...and he wants to quit....but there's a war on and apparently they needed even the help of hapless Hap...who spends an awful lot of time complaining. In fact, during much of the story, Hap just complains and complains about how he hates tanks and how wonderful horses are. Where does all this go?
This film is very formulaic and I found myself telling my wife how the whole thing would end about halfway through the movie...and I was, sadly, 100% right. And, if you've seen a lot of old movies, it clearly IS predictable. If you haven't, the film might work better for you. It also is very schmaltzy and is seemed dated even by the time the movie was released. Overall, you could easily do better with most of Beery's other films.
- planktonrules
- Aug 20, 2022