Suicide Battalion

This is one of the countless 1950s-60s AIP war flicks. I have seen several and they are all pretty bad. This particular one is directed by Edward L. Cahn. Other entries in the genre include TANK BATTALION, TANK COMMANDOS, JET ATTACK and HELL SQUAD.

Familiar face Mike Connors (from MANNIX) leads a band of specially trained demolition men to blow up a HQ building the Japanese have captured.

There's lots of badly stock war footage, a script that makes no sense (don't send the men right away, give them almost the entire movie to sit around doing pointless stuff when they ought to be killing enemy soldiers). Plus very cheap looking soundstages to simulate the Philippine jungle. Oh, yeah, throw in an obligatory woman character for the two leads to fight over and you're all set.

Still this movie towers above BRIDGE TO HELL and COMMANDO SQUAD.

I give it a 2/10.

American International Pictures (AIP) was a super-cheap production company that really came into its own in the 1960s. With a lot of beach films, stories about drugs, hippies and biker gangs, the studio made a ton of money because their super-cheaply made films were popular in drive-in theaters....though they never were what anyone would consider artistic masterpieces!

In the case of "Suicide Batallion", the studio made the sort of 1950s film that they really did NOT do well...a WWII epic. What are the major problems? It all boils down to money. The writing and acting weren't all that hot and the film often resorted to stock footage because there really wasn't much money for costumes, props and the like.

The story is about an amazingly undisciplined group of jerks who are assigned the task to blow up a building behind enemy lines in the Pacific theater. Heading the group is a wimpy Major (Mike Connors) who doesn't see all that put off that his Lieutenant is disobedient and even, at times, does this in front of the rest of the men. Toss in some sexy ladies (after all, wasn't the Pacific in 1942-3 filled with hot, buxom American women???) and you have a picture that is watchable but nothing more.

Despite actually having a familiar face in the lead (Mike Connors), an Oscar-winning cameraman and a veteran director there was plainly nothing left in the kitty to leave the studio and actually make the movie.

So it consists almost entirely of actors on a tiny soundstage looking rugged, hanging out in the local bordello, engaging in unfunny comic relief, tangling with a sexy female 'war correspondent' with a 50's hairstyle; and wholly dependent for actual action outdoors upon library footage.

Edward Cahn directs this very low budget war yarn. Mike Connors leads a special squad assigned to destroy top intelligence papers in the Philippines. The mission is almost suicidal, because the Japanese have set up a HQ in the small building housing the hidden documents.

Familiar stock footage is meshed with this spotty script. No masterpiece, but a quickie war flick worth watching. Diverse cast of characters that include: Bing Russell, Russ Bender and John Ashley. Ashley always seems to over act, but then there is Jewell Lain that shows very little skills as a reporter/love interest. Look for Sammee Tong, who played the butler on TV's "Bachelor Father". Lock and load.

A quick look at the Edward L Cahn section of this site reveals that he was notably prolific and in the year this movie was made -1958-churned out 5 other titles and maintained a similar rate for much of his career.Quantity rather than quality was a feature of his movie making and this has little to recommend it .

It is a curiously immobile film with much of the footage consisting of actors reciting rather dull dialogue in front of a static camera .The picture is clearly drive -in movie fodder and I suspect it was the bottom half of a double bill alongside a beach party or horror flick of similar dullness and lack of skill.

Set in the Pacific during World war Two it deals with the eponymous battalion who are sent behind enemy lines to prevent key strategy papers falling into Japanese hands .The actors are mostly youthful and good looking ,designed to appeal to a teen audience but possessing little grasp of the dramatic arts .Tension arises when the hard bitten commander Major McCormack (Mike Connors)clashes with second in command Lieutenant Hall (Bing Russell)in part over a mutual interest in a woman war photographer Elizabeth Mason (Jewell Lian)and there is a tiresome sub plot about a marriage between a young GI ,Tommy Novello (John Ashley)and a native girl . The acting is atrocious -apart from Russ Bender as the experienced Sergeant .Battle scenes use obvious stock newsreel footage and the whole movie is shoddy badly staged and a waste of time for the audience suckered into watching it