Les vainqueurs

Carl Foreman's "The Victors" is extraordinary for two reasons:

1) it emphasizes the characters over the action

2) while being a "spot the star" flick, this is a film made up of smaller stars.

Among the "smaller" stars in this, we have Vince Edwards, George Hamilton, Albert Finney, Peter Fonda, Eli Wallach and George Peppard. Perhaps they are not as big as the ones who appeared in the popular war epics of the time, but I think it benefits from this approach. The film is a bunch of low-key stories strung together by the war and these low-key actors are perfect for this approach.

There are action scenes. It wouldn't be a war film without them. But after a while, I got tired of action scene after action scene and I appreciated a film that let us get to know these soldiers and how they felt about the war and life. It predates Terrence Malick's "The Thin Red Line" by about 33 years, but it's just as effective.

Carl Foreman was famously blacklisted during the 1950s and only now is his work appreciated. His credits include "The Bridge Over The River Kwai" and "The Guns of Navarone" and in this, his directorial debut, he demonstrates the skill and drama of the earlier pictures along with the character studies. The result: a richly textured film, one of 1963's best. If only more people knew about it. Columbia, if you're reading this, release it on tape and DVD NOW!

**** out of 4 stars

A somewhat distasteful but fine, very watchable film. It has the one cynical message of how WWII consequentially brought about some sort of demise in all those involved in the Allies efforts to rid Europe of the Nazis - both soldiers and citizens. In a series of short scenes, different characters take centre stage in depicting different aspects of the main theme. Sometimes the best in people is displayed, with genuine friendships and affections, but those with more exposure to the conflict as it progresses from the invasion of France, are more susceptible to their darker sides coming to the fore. Some are more able to overcome this (like Peppard), others sink deeper into despair (like Hamilton), some don't question how they have become worse (like Mitcham), while the ultimate downfall of others is physical rather than mental maiming (like Wallach). Faults do exist. The film is a little heavy laden with making the same point in unrelated scenes, and sometimes the attempted pathos is over done. Also, like all films of its era, the 'likeable' male characters have to be clean cut and good looking, any black character is too weak, and there are too many glamorous women, with the only strong woman character not being pleasant. Republican Yanks will hate the film's lack of heroism and fair play, along with it's criticism of the virtues the USA was fighting for: Profiteers doing well as the free-market economy went to war and GI's capable of being as racist as their Nazi foes. In the main its an enjoyable, nicely acted film - one of my favourites - a refreshing change to all the simplistic, pious and very corny "good over-coming evil" representation of this conflict a-la Spielberg, etc.

It's gratifying to read so many other appreciative reviews of this too-little-seen film.

I was 12 years old when Life magazine ran a spread on "The Victors" late in 1963, shortly before its release, and I recall the article was a bit negative in describing the film, as though the reviewer couldn't accept a film that depicted World War II so bleakly. Few films about Americans in that war had ever portrayed them so unheroically. (The only one I can think of is Robert Aldrich's "Attack!") The movie's Christmas season release in a country still reeling from the JFK assassination knocked this grim film out of theaters in a matter of three or four weeks. It was shown several times on the old CBS late movie series in the late '60s (where I first got to see it), but I've only seen it once on a premium cable presentation, in the mid-'90s. Several years ago I was able to obtain a 16mm print from the only rental house that offered it, but it was a scan-and-pan version from which some scenes had been cut.

One of these scenes, quickly trimmed from the initial release version, depicted a young European boy trying to sell a sexual service to American GIs; I think the other scene that was cut involved one of the female stars in the film. Even for the early 1960s, "The Victors" was a sexually frank film (without being in any way pornographic), which certainly must have offended some early viewers and exhibitors. Indeed, despite the American characters, the film really is more European in flavor and moral atmosphere. (Foreman, blacklisted by Hollywood in 1953, had been living in England for several years when he made the film, and his directorial style seems to owe much to the Italian neo-realists.)

(It's also interesting to contemplate that Foreman's previous film outing had been as writer and producer of "The Guns of Navarone." One is tempted to think that the gala heroics and spectacular action of that popular film may have prompted Foreman to make a more realistic war movie.)

The episodic format of "The Victors" also makes it a difficult viewing experience for people used to more continuity in their films. Foreman based the film rather faithfully on Alexander Baron's novel, "The Human Kind," itself essentially a collection of short sketches involving the same wartime characters (in the novel, they're British soldiers, but Foreman retained their names for the American film characters). Still, for a repeat viewer, it is possible to see the characters change through the episodes. Some of the characters disappear with no explanation, others are suddenly promoted, new characters appear unheralded. Life, and war, are like that sometimes. And there is some shrewd foreshadowing: Early in the film, Trower (George Hamilton) remarks that he hopes to meet a Russian soldier; and be sure to take careful note of Grogan (Jim Mitchum) in his first few scenes.

"The Victors" is not without humor or compassion, but Foreman's purpose was to eliminate the heroics and the excitement of combat and to demonstrate that, as much as we try to rationalize it, war is a degrading experience for all concerned. The corrupting of a lovely young musician (Romy Schneider) by an American soldier (Michael Callan), the fleeting affair between Baker (Vince Edwards)and a young Italian mother (Rosanna Schiaffino), the encounter between Sgt. Craig (Eli Wallach) and a shell-shocked French woman (Jeanne Moreau) -- all remain vivid in the memory.

Another interesting feature of "The Victors," which was not in the novel, is Foreman's use of wartime newsreels as counterpoint to the fictional scenes. Sometimes it's a little too cute, but mostly it works.

Foreman knew that most people who saw "The Victors" would have an idea of what war action was like, if only from earlier war movies. What he wanted to show, what few earlier war films ever showed, was the moral wear-and-tear of combat on solder and civilian alike, in victory or defeat. To a large extent he succeeds. This is a film well-deserving of DVD release (in its complete widescreen version). And if you like this film, go the TCM website and demand that they show it!

While not your standard WWII picture The Victors is comprised of short tales about a group of American GIs who slog their way from one spot in the European theater to another. One scene I found to be very powerful. It is a scene of an American GI being executed for desertion with the films background music being a Christmas carol. I took this to be the execution of Private Eddie Slovik who was the only American executed in the Second World War for desertion. It is viewed on the screen from a distance so there are no close up shots. I would recommend this film for the purpose of that one scene alone.

I saw this movie many years ago, and still remember it. I'd like to see it on video. The movie has a surreal feel to it.... but, I imagine that anyone actually involved in the madness of fighting a modern war feels the surrealness of the movie a very faint immitation of the surrealness of war. The typical movie presents a view of an event, and one has the feeling that all that is significant about the event has been recorded and presented in the movie, but in "The Victors" it is clear that what is being presented is just a peek at reality .. the whole story is unknown, unknowable.... Just as in life we usually feel as if we understand what's going on around us and are acting in a perfectly rational manner, when in fact we are each very small players on a stage and we are being blown about like leaves by forces we don't even know exist.