Attack! **** (1956, Jack Palance, Eddie Albert, Lee Marvin, Buddy Ebsen, Robert Strauss, Richard Jaeckel) – Classic Movie Review 3,408

Robert Aldrich’s classic 1956 anti-war film Attack! is as uncompromising as it is powerful. It is one of the all-time great World War Two movies.

Producer-director Robert Aldrich’s classic 1956 war movie, or rather anti-war film, Attack! is as uncompromising as it is powerful.

He again casts his star from the previous year’s The Big Knife, Jack Palance as US 2nd Lieutenant Costa, whose American National Guard Infantry platoon, Fox Company, sets up an artillery observation post. But tensions run high between Costa and Captain Cooney (Eddie Albert). The platoon is deserted at the Belgian front line in 1944 by the cowardly infantry officer Cooney, causing many deaths.

On their return, creepy Lieutenant Colonel Clyde Bartlett (Lee Marvin), the CO of White Battalion, refuses to condemn Cooney in the hope of gaining favours back home after the war from the man’s father. So it’s up to an avenging Costa to try to settle the score and fulfil his pledge to kill Cooney.

Based by screen-writer James Poe on Norman Brooks’s scathing stage play The Fragile Fox, this tough, thoughtful and intelligent action film is a riveting one to watch thanks to the intelligent writing, Joseph F Biroc’s striking black and white cinematography, Frank De Vol’s excellent score, the consistently strong, powerhouse performances, and Aldrich’s attacking direction.

It’s easy to see why the US Defence Department refused to co-operate during the production, since it spares few sensibilities in its brutal portrait of military warfare in the war. The film is brave enough to show the way war really is and looks behind the glory to suggest that, on occasion, a United States soldier might be rather less than an officer and a gentleman.

The US Defence Department’s policy of non-cooperation with the film is slightly odd given that the cowardly Captain Cooney (Eddie Albert) is portrayed as the one rotten apple in the barrel, which is otherwise full of noble officers such as Costa (Jack Palance) and Woodruff (William Smithers). But then, Lieutenant Colonel Clyde Bartlett (Lee Marvin) is a creepy manipulative CO of the battalion. The US Army didn’t want to see their officers shown as cowards or manipulators.

One of Aldrich’s special talents was his empathy with actors. The acting throughout this finely crafted movie is spot on, with outstanding work from the always-underrated actor Palance. Also in the cast are Buddy Ebsen, Robert Strauss, Richard Jaeckel, William Smithers, Peter van Eyck (inevitably an SS Captain), Jon Shepodd, Jimmy Goodwin, Steven Geray, Louis Mercier, Strother Martin, Jud Taylor, Henry Rowland, Holly Bane, Ron McNeil, and Leonard Bremen.

Aldrich read the play and admired its attitudes to war, but did not see it on stage. He bought the film rights after not winning the rights for Irwin Shaw’s The Young Lions and Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead.

Aldrich made the film for his The Associates & Aldrich Company without the big budget other war films were getting. It was shot in 32 days on the RKO Studios back lot with a small cast and low budget ($810,000) and a few pieces of military equipment, including the two much modified US M3 light tanks inadequately standing in for German tanks.

Aldrich recalled: ‘The Army saw the script and laid down a policy of no cooperation, which not only meant that I couldn’t borrow troops and tanks but also that I couldn’t even get a look at Signal Corps combat footage. I finally had to buy a tank for $1,000 and rent another from 20th Century-Fox.’

Lee Marvin and Eddie Albert in Attack!

Rehearsals began on 5 January 1956 and filming started on 15 January 1956. It was released by United Artists on 17 October 1956. It’s just as well that there was a low budget of $810,000, because the North American box office was $2 million, so it made a profit, but because the profits were ‘cross-collateralised’ against The Big Knife, ‘nobody saw any of the money’, Aldrich claimed.

Saul Bass created the opening title sequence showing off-duty soldiers.

Eddie Albert, who plays the cowardly Cooney, was in real life a decorated hero in the World War Two Pacific Theater.

It runs 107 minutes.

The cast are Jack Palance as 2nd Lieutenant Joe Costa, Eddie Albert as Captain Erskine Cooney, Lee Marvin as Lieutenant Colonel Clyde Bartlett, William Smithers as 2nd Lieutenant / Captain Harold ‘Harry’ Woodruff, Robert Strauss as PFC. Bernstein, Richard Jaeckel as Pvt. Snowden, Buddy Ebsen as T/Sgt. Tolliver, Jon Shepodd as Cpl. John Jackson, Peter van Eyck as SS Captain, James Goodwin as PFC. Ricks, Steven Geray as German NCO Otto,  Jud Taylor [Judson Taylor] as Pvt. Jacob R. Abramowitz, Strother Martin as Sgt. Ingersol, Louis Mercier, Henry Rowland, Holly Bane, Ron McNeil, and Leonard Bremen.

Lee Marvin as Lieutenant Colonel Clyde Bartlett, the creepy manipulative CO of the battalion.

Lee Marvin is one of the stars of Aldrich’s later The Dirty Dozen (1967). Marvin said his time in the Marine Corps helped him ‘by playing an officer how I felt it should have been seen, from the bias of an enlisted man’s viewpoint’. And he also starred in Aldrich’s Emperor of the North Pole (1973).

Despite his image, Marvin was a Democrat. He publicly endorsed John F Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election. In a 1969 interview, he said he supported gay rights.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3,408

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/