Film Review: Battleground (1949)

When World War II ended in September 1945, so did the American public's interest in combat films. Now that battlefield successes in Europe and in the Pacific had assured Allied victory, people wanted to move on with their lives and not think about the horrors of war and the hardships they had endured during the conflict. Hollywood had long anticipated the country's desire to return to normalcy, and war film production stalled for several years after VJ Day in favour of «a steady peacetime diet of noir thrillers, madcap comedies and adventure films.» In the late 1940s, however, three first-rate combat dramas — Twelve O'Clock High (1949), Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), and especially William A. Wellman's Battleground (1949) — initiated a cycle of war pictures that «would continue almost unabated until the dark era of the Vietnam War.»

Theatrical release posters for Twelve O'Clock High, Sands of Iwo Jima and Battleground.

Battleground follows a fictional company of the 327th Glider Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army, as they fight in the siege of the Belgian town of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. The film opens in mid-December 1944, as the battle-weary soldiers await their long-promised leave in Paris. Their hopes of a rest are shattered, however, when they are called back to the front line to stop a surprise German breakthrough in Bastogne. After a heavy snow storm, Platoon Sergeant Kinnie informs the men that a group of German soldiers disguised as American G.I.s have infiltrated their position, and sends out Privates Holley, Jarvess and Roderigues to patrol the fog-shrouded woods near the town. They soon finds themselves under intense enemy fire and, in the ensuing stand-off, Roderigues is wounded and eventually freezes to death.

 

A short time later, while on guard duty, they encounter a party of Germans who approach them under a flag of truce and attempt to negotiate an American surrender. Brigadier General McAuliffe, the acting commander of the 101st Airborne Division, responds with a single word: «Nuts!» On Christmas Day, the chaplain delivers a moving service in the field, before being interrupted by the sounds of the Luftwaffe bombing Bastogne. As the squad is down to its last rounds of ammunition, the fog lifts around the town and Allied relief planes are finally able to drop supplies. The subsequent arrival of reinforcements allows the 101st to quickly defeat the Germans. With their mission accomplished, Kinnie leads the platoon's survivors towards the rear for a well-earned rest.

 

Stills from Battleground. LEFT: Van Johnson and Ricardo Montalbán. RIGHT: Bruce Cowling, John Hodiak and Van Johnson.

Producer Dore Schary first conceived Battleground in early 1947, when he was still head of production at RKO Pictures. Although studio executives felt that the trend of war pictures had passed, Schary believed «it was imperative to do a film about World War II that would say that war was worth fighting despite the terrible losses,» so as to prevent Americans from experiencing the same kind of disillusionment that had swept the country after the First World War. To emphasize both the sense of sacrifice and the threat of a Nazi takeover, Schary looked for a specific situation in which the Allied cause had been close to failure. He found the perfect story in the decisive siege of the Belgian town of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, the largest and bloodiest battle fought by the United States during World War II. Aware that veteran screenwriter Robert Pirosh had served in Europe during the war, Schary immediately arranged a meeting with him and asked if he knew anything about Bastogne. «Know anything?» Pirosh replied, «I was there!»

 

Enlisting in the U.S. Army in June 1943, Pirosh had seen combat as a master sergeant with the 320th Regiment of the 35th Infantry Division, which was crucial in relieving the encircled 101st Airborne as they struggled to survive the German attacks and the freezing cold of the Ardennes Forest. He kept a wartime journal wherein he recorded his experiences as an infantryman, as well as short incidents and anecdotal episodes he witnessed while fighting alongside the 101st. «It was not a daily diary, but my mind was always on a possible picture to be written after the war,» Pirosh later explained. Given his experience, Schary realized that Pirosh was «uniquely qualified» to write the script for his proposed war picture, and hired him right after their meeting.

 

LEFT: Soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division marching out of Bastogne. RIGHT: An M-3 half-track (right) of the 35th Infantry Division advancing past a burned German Panzer IV tank in the village of Foy, during the Battle of the Bulge.

Worried that another studio would beat RKO to the theatres with a rival war picture, Schary kept a close wrap of secrecy around the pre-production stage of Battleground, and even gave Pirosh's script a cover title, Prelude to Love, as a way to disguise its subject. After returning to the battlefields of Bastogne in April 1947 and reliving the «horror of times past,» Pirosh knew exactly the kind of story he wanted to tell. He wanted to focus on one single squad of riflemen, «without heroics, without fancy speeches, without a phony romance,» and avoid the clichés that were frequent in war films at that time: «there is no character from Brooklyn in the story. Nobody gets a letter from his wife or girl saying she has found a new love, and nobody sweats out the news of the arrival of a new born baby back home.» The most important thing was to write «a picture which would ring true to the men [who had fought in the Bulge] and which would not be an insult to the memory of those we left there.»

 

Although Pirosh «had slept in the same mud, picked at the same frozen K-rations, faced the same German soldiers» as the «Battered Basterds of Bastogne,» the nickname given to the members of the 101st Airborne Division who fought in the Battle of the Bulge, he feared he might not be able to develop an accurate script. To be as true-to-life as possible, he sought advice from Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, who had commanded the division during the siege of Bastogne, and whose succinct reply of «Nuts!» to the German demand of surrender had become a symbol of American determination during the war. McAuliffe enthusiastically approved of the project, and encouraged Pirosh to «go ahead and write it the way you feel it.» Like Pirosh, McAuliffe believed it was time that the public was shown a new side of the war, and later served as technical adviser on the writing phase of Battleground, personally annotating and approving every line of dialogue.

 

LEFT: General McAuliffe (centre) with his officers in Bastogne, in December 1944. RIGHT: General McAuliffe (right) being decorated by General Patton with the Distinguished Service Cross for the defense of Bastogne.

In early spring of 1948, shortly after Pirosh handed in his first draft of the screenplay, Schary signed Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan and Bill Williams to starring roles, with Fred Zinnemann in mind to direct. At that point, eccentric aviation tycoon and occasional film producer Howard Hughes suddenly bought RKO and told Schary to take Battleground off the studio's production schedule, feeling that the story was «too grim and lacked key entertainment values.» Hughes was firmly convinced that an infantry picture would be a disaster, but Schary strongly believed Battleground was a «winner.» Exasperated at Hughes's intransigence, Schary resigned from RKO, and was quickly hired by Louis B. Mayer as head of production at MGM, the studio he had left years earlier over creative conflicts. Schary wanted Battleground to be his first project back at MGM, but Mayer was skeptical about its commercial prospects. Since he did not want to oppose Schary so soon after his return to the studio, Mayer eventually allowed him to make the film. The producer then purchased the screenplay of Battleground from Hughes, and brought Pirosh to MGM to complete it.

 

To direct Battleground, Schary hired William A. Wellman, who had recently delivered a successful portrayal of infantrymen in The Story of G.I. Joe (1945), starring Burgess Meredith and Robert Mitchum. Known as «Will Bill,» Wellman was a decorated veteran of World War I, having served as a fighter pilot in the Lafayette Flying Corps, the name given to the group of American volunteers who flew with the French Air Force during that conflict. He was considered by many in the industry to be an expert at handling action sequences, and had the distinction of having directed the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, Wings (1927). Although Wellman disliked Schary and disagreed with his desire to put messages in films, he liked Pirosh's script and agreed to direct Battleground, especially since the studio had offered him «an awful lot of money to do it.» Still, he told Schary, «Look, I can't make a G.I. Joe out of this thing. I'll make a film about a very tired group of guys.»

 

Robert Pirosh and William A. Wellman during the making of Battleground.

Assembling the cast of Battleground proved to be somewhat problematic at first, as Robert Taylor, Bill Williams, Robert Ryan and Keenan Wynn all departed the project due to contractual conflicts. To replace Taylor in the part of the fun-loving Private First Class Holley, Schary signed Van Johnson, one of MGM's most profitable stars during the war years, often playing military roles in films such as A Guy Named Joe (1943) and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944). Johnson popularity had declined in the late 1940s, and he hoped that Battleground would not only restore his status as one of the nation's biggest box-office draws, but also bring out the best of his acting abilities.

 

Joining Johnson as Private Ernest J. «Pop» Stazak, an older soldier who is given his discharge papers just before the company moves to Bastogne, was George Murphy, a song-and-dance man and future U.S. Senator from California. Beginning his film career in 1930, Murphy appeared in several big-budget musicals, including Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937) and For Me and My Gal (1942), before retiring from Hollywood and entering politics in 1952. Mexican actor Ricard Montalbán, who had signed a long-term contract with MGM in 1947, was cast as the Mexican-American Private Johnny Roderigues, while John Hodiak was assigned to the role of Private Donald Jarvess, a small-town newspaper columnist. A former radio actor, Hodiak had signed with MGM in 1942, although he was frequently loaned out to other studios, notably 20th Century Fox, where he filmed Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944). Marshall Thompson, who had been at MGM since 1946, signed on to play Private Jim Layton, an inexperienced replacement who slowly learns the value of true comradeship. Former child actor Scotty Beckett, a regular in Hal Roach's popular Our Gang short subjects series from 1934 to 1935, appears in a small role as Private William J. Hooper, while Herbert Anderson, later known for his work in CBS's sitcom Dennis the Menace (1959-1963), played Private Hansan.

 

Still from Battleground. LEFT: Bruce Cowling, Van Johnson and George Murphy. RIGHT: John Hodiak and Van Johnson.

The remaining cast members of Battleground had all served in the U.S. armed forces during World War II. James Whitmore, who played the frostbitten, cigar-chewing Staff Sergeant Kinnie, joined the Marine Corps while attending Yale University in 1942, and was later assigned to the Pacific Theatre of war as a second lieutenant in the 4th Marine Division. Bruce Cowling, cast as the no-nonsense squad leader Sergeant Wolowicz, was a radio operator in the Army Signal Corps, while Jerome Courtland, who appeared as the ill-fated hillbilly Private Abner Spudler, saw combat with the Army in the Pacific Theatre. Douglas Fowley, who played Private Kippton, served in the Navy as a communications officer aboard an aircraft carrier in the South Pacific, losing his upper front teeth in an explosion. Richard Jaeckel, who signed on to play Private Bettis, was in the Merchant Marine and saw action in the Pacific Theatre, including Saipan. James Arness, cast as Sergeant Garby, joined the Army in 1943 and was sent to Europe as a rifleman in the 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division. He was severely wounded in his right leg during the Battle of Anzio, for which he received the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star Medal. Brett King, who made his film debut as Lieutenant Teiss, served as a fighter pilot in the Army Air Forces, being awarded the Purple Heart and the Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions. Future director Don Taylor, hired to play Corporal Standiferd, was drafted into the Army Air Forces in 1943, although he did not see combat; instead, he was assigned to the First Motion Picture Unit, which produced propaganda and training films. Leon Ames, who appeared as the Chaplain, was also a veteran, but of World War I, during he served in the Army and later in the Army Air Service.

 

Stills from Battleground. LEFT: Herbert Anderson, Van Johnson, James Whitmore, Bruce Cowling, George Murphy and Ricardo Montalbán. RIGHT: Jerome Courtland, John Hodiak, Douglas Fowley, Ricardo Montalbán and Don Taylor.

While Battleground was essentially an all-male production, Pirosh's script did include a female character, a farm girl from Bastogne who houses and feeds some of the soldiers, and whom Holley tries to romance. To play the role, Schary hired Denise Darcel, described to him as «a buxom, juicy French girl [...] with ample round buttocks and breasts that, as she walked, presented a moveable feast.» Wellman did not think a war picture should have included «that kind of stuff,» especially since the studio had Darcel wear a tight black sweater throughout the film. However, he commented that, cinematically, her breasts proved «wonderful to play with.»

 

On August 15, 1945, VJ Day, Darcel had celebrated Japan's surrender in an unusual way: as a passenger in an L-5 Stinson light observation aircraft. The pilot, James Helinger Sr. — with whom she had developed a romance while he was stationed near Paris during the war — invited her to see the celebration from the air, flying under several bridges along the Seine, and even under the Eiffel Tower, with the crowds below. Helinger's daring air acrobatics caught the attention of a reporter, who wrote an article about them for the following day's Paris edition of the New York Herald Tribune.

 

LEFT: Denise Darcel and Van Johnson in a publicity still for Battleground. MIDDLE: Denise Darcel and George Murphy between takes. RIGHT: Ricardo Montalbán, Herbert Anderson and Denise Darcel on the set.

 

Battleground was filmed between April 5 and June 3, 1949. The studio recreated the winter-like atmosphere of the Ardennes Forest by taking out a wall between two sound stages and constructing a huge indoor battlefield. Art director Hans Peters then mapped out the terrain, action and possible camera angles, giving Wellman and cinematographer Paul C. Vogel a completely controlled environment in which to work. Apart from the obvious benefit of not having to worry about melting snow, the detailed setting facilitated not only lighting, but also filming in general. Location shooting for the opening and closing scenes took place in northern California, Oregon and Washington. The Army base at Fort Lewis, Washington served as the background for the tank sequence depicting the relief of the 101st Airborne at Bastogne by General Patton's Third Army.

 

Both MGM and the military went to great lengths to ensure that the picture would be as realistic as possible. Schary arranged with General McAuliffe and the Army to provide tanks, trucks and other military equipment, as well as 20 veterans of the 101st Airborne Division who had fought at Bastogne to train the actors and serve as extras. Lieutenant Colonel Harry Kinnard, who had been the 101st's deputy divisional commander at Bastogne, was brought in as the film's technical advisor. Schary also implemented an effective system of dubbing and cutting during production, which made it possible to preview Battleground within two days of the scenes being filmed. Each day's film was processed as it was shot, reducing the average time between completion and preview by several weeks. As a result, shooting wrapped up 20 days under its initial schedule, and came in almost $100,000 under budget. In post-production, film editor John Dunning expertly matched stage action with a limited amount of real combat footage, as a way to increase authenticity. 

 

LEFT: George Murphy (foreground) and other members of the cast working out on the set. MIDDLE: John Hodiak, Van Johnson and George Murphy between takes. RIGHT: John Hodiak during a break from filming.

Schary wanted to make sure Battleground was released no later than the end of year to take advantage of the profitable holiday movie season, and to qualify for that year's Academy Awards. As such, the film received a number of premieres before going into general release on January 20, 1950. After a private showing for President Harry S. Truman while he was vacation in Key West, Florida, Battleground was screened in Washington D.C. on November 9, 1949, in an event that was attended by General McAuliffe and other military and political dignitaries. Two days later, the film opened at the Astor Theatre in New York City, and then on December 1 in Los Angeles.

 

Critical reviews for Battleground were overwhelmingly positive, with Photoplay magazine naming it the best picture of the year. Similarly, Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called it «the best of the World War II pictures that have yet been made in Hollywood,» endorsing the view that it was as important a post-war epic as King Vidor's The Big Parade (1925) had been in the aftermath of World War I. He applauded Pirosh's script and Wellman's direction, and was particularly impressed by the cast, considering it «difficult to make a selection of those who merit special praise.» The film was also a massive financial hit, taking in $3,750,000 at the box-office. It was MGM's biggest moneymaker of that year, and also the studio's highest-grossing picture in five years.

 

At the 22nd Academy Awards ceremony held at the RKO Pantages Theatre in Hollywood on March 23, 1950, Robert Pirosh and Paul C. Vogel received Oscars for Best Writing (Story and Screenplay) and Best Cinematography (Black-and-White), respectively. James Whitmore was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, but lost to Dean Jagger for his performance in Twelve O'Clock High, while John Dunning was passed over in the Best Film Editing category in favour of Harry W. Gerstad for his work on Champion (1949). Additionally, William A. Wellman earned his third nomination for Best Director, losing to Joseph L. Mankiewicz for A Letter to Three Wives (1949). Battleground was also one of the five nominees for the coveted Best Motion Picture award, but lost to All the King's Men (1949).

 

Original American release lobby cards for Battleground, depicting two scenes from the film.

 

Being fascinated by anything even slightly related to World War II, I have watched countless films and television series set during that time period, and Battleground has become one of my personal favourites. First of all, it is highly accurate, which is essential (or at least it should be) in a film that portrays real historic events. Secondly, I love how Pirosh was able to incorporate agony and humour in his screenplay — much like Roberto Benigni would later do in his masterpiece, Life is Beautiful (1997), another one of my favourites — and I appreciate the fact that he did not attempt to glorify these soldiers, as most war films at the time did (and some still do today). In conclusion, Battleground to me stands out as one of the finest films ever made about World War II, as it does not romanticize war, and portrays soldiers as vulnerable and human, rather than heroic.

 

 

[Originally posted in Back to Golden Days: Film Friday: Battleground (1949)]

 

___________________________________

SOURCES:

«Battleground.» AFI Catalog of Feature Films, https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/25846. 

Crowther, Bosley. «The Screen in Review; 'Battleground,' Metro Film on Heroic American Soldiers at Bastogne, Opens at Astor.» The New York Times, 12 Nov. 1949, https://www.nytimes.com/1949/11/12/archives/the-screen-in-review-battleground-metro-film-on-heroic-american.html.

Davis, Ronald L. Van Johnson: MGM's Golden Boy. University Press of Mississippi, 2009.

Nixon, Rob. «Trivia - Battleground - Trivia & Fun Facts About Battleground.» Turner Classic Movies, 16 Apr. 2009, https://www.tcm.com/articles/220522/trivia-battleground-trivia-and-fun-facts-about-battleground. 

Rubin, Steven Jay. Combat Films: American Realism, 1945-2010. 2nd ed., McFarland & Company, Inc., 2011.

Schatz, Thomas. Boom and Dust: American Cinema of the 1940s. University of California Press, 1999.

Suid, Lawrence H. Guts and Glory: The Making of the American Military Image in Film. University Press of Kentucky, 2002. 

Thompson, Lang. «Battleground.» Turner Classic Movies, 26 Feb. 2003, https://www.tcm.com/articles/21807/battleground.

«The 22nd Academy Awards (1950).» Oscars.org, https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1950.