Une minute avant l'heure H

Mitchum is the U.S. forces colonel, trying to train the Korean army in warfare, while Ann Blyth is the interpreter "Linda". Of course, they disagree on everything, but naturally they fall in love, in spite of themselves. Even back then, they make the comment that "Nato will just pass some more strongly worded resolutions." This is extra interesting, since the war was still going on when this film was released. Viewers will also spot William Talman, in an early role here, who would go on to be the DA on Perry Mason. He died young at 53. Great flick, overall. They toss in joking one-liners, although they sometimes feel out of place, since there's so much death and dying all around them. Directed by Tay Garnett. He had a great track record, making some of the great films of Hollywood. Showing on Turner Classics.

In 1999 there was a big to-do about a supposed atrocity during the Korean War, the strafing of civilians fleeing fighting during the initial push by the North Koreans down the Korean peninsula at No Gun Ri. It turned out that the main eyewitness for the story was a liar who was not even in in-country in 1950. The fuss would have been no surprise to viewers of this movie. Here it was artillery fire rather than air attack that caused civilian casualties, but the situation was basically the same. The film depicts the sad necessity of firing on a column of refugees, driven at gunpoint by communist soldiers hidden among them in civilian clothes, who were trying to get past U.N. lines. The blame in the movie is clearly on the commies, but there is no attempt to gloss over the ugly necessities of war. This movie was the first time I ever heard the phrase "Fire for Effect", a phrase I was to utter myself frequently years later as an artillery officer in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Unlike a great many films dealing with the Korean war ONE MINUTE TO ZERO does try to bring a sense of time and place to the proceedings . We see planes from Australia strafing North Korean troops while another scene scene shows British troops marching off to war behind a Scottish pipe band , and the most memorable sequence features North Korean infiltrators using refugees as human shields which did happen fairly often during that exceptionally cruel conflict. Compare this to most other films about the Korean war which could have been set in Asia or Europe during the second world war .

It does have a few flaws , for example there`s some painfully obvious real life film footage used and some of the battle scenes , especially the sequence with a soldier being killed by a flame thrower , could have been more graphic but I suppose that`s down to what you could show on screen in 1952 so perhaps that`s not a valid criticism . What is however is the inclusion of a love story which drags the story down some what . Women won`t want to watch ONE MINUTE TO ZERO because of the large number of combat scenes while fans of war films ( Who I guess are exclusively male ) will find the love story intrusive . But it`s a lot better than PEARL HARBOR

ONE MINUTE TO ZERO is a typical American war movie with the then-contemporaneous Korean War serving as the theatre of battle in this instance. The film stars the ubiquitous Robert Mitchum as a hard-bitten combat veteran and colonel in the US army tasked with helping evacuate the local population while at the same time protecting them from advancing North Korean troops. There's not much in the way of a big story here as the war itself IS the story; however, as a realistic depiction of battle it works very well.

This is a visual film with some highly memorable combat scenes in it. Realism is enhanced through the use of real-life wartime footage and the scenes of jets firing rockets are quite incredible and never bettered by Hollywood special effects even in this day and age. I loved the tank battles as well although the film's tense highlight involves the Commies hiding inside refugee columns and ready to burst out and massacre at a moment's notice. A duck is involved in one of the film's tragic highlights. Character actors like Richard Egan, Charles McGraw, and William Talman flesh out realistic supporting roles although Ann Blyth's love interest suffers from the era's usual sexist depiction of women and feels like an unnecessary addition to the story.

Love and war are a favored show theme in a number of films... Love often brings people of completely different backgrounds together, as in Huston's "The African Queen," Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms," Arthur Hill's "The Americanization of Emily," Douglas Sirk's "A Time to Love and a Time to Die." Also Anatole Litvak's "Act of Love" explores the relationship between an embittered GI (Kirk Douglas), and a lonely, helpless French girl (Dany Robin) fearful of becoming an outright tramp...

"One Minute to Zero" uses love to make the Korean War acceptable... Ann Blyth is a nurse who has already lost a lover to the war... She is deeply hurt and cannot bear the though of falling in love with a soldier... However, she does, with a fighter pilot played by Robert Mitchum... In the end she becomes convinced that he is doing the right thing...

One interesting point about the film is the scene where Mitchum (evacuating American civilians) strafes a column of refugees because it was feared that some guerrillas had infiltrated among them...