{"id":5017,"date":"2009-08-07T20:18:06","date_gmt":"2009-08-08T04:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/?p=5017"},"modified":"2009-08-08T07:32:46","modified_gmt":"2009-08-08T15:32:46","slug":"hell-is-for-heroes-don-siegel-1962-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/?p=5017","title":{"rendered":"Hell is for Heroes (Don Siegel, 1962): USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy<\/a>.\u00a0 Viewed on Turner Classic Movies.<\/p>\n

\"hellforheroes\"New Hollywood began to emerge in the 1960’s bringing a plethora of great war films to the big screen.\u00a0 Whereas the\u00a01940’s war films were generally patriotic with wholesome characters representing the allied forces, the 1960’s war films were often questionable regarding motives.\u00a0 Among some of the more popular WWII films produced during the 1960’s were J. Lee Thompson’s\u00a0The Guns of Navarone (1961), John Sturges’ The Great Escape (1963) and Robert Aldrich’s The Dirty Dozen (1967).\u00a0 Hell is for Heroes<\/em><\/a> is not as well known as the aforementioned films, but it\u00a0is well-acted, directed and highly entertaining.<\/p>\n

A gritty, dramatic WWII film shot in B & W,\u00a0 Hell is for Heroes stars Steve McQueen and a terrific line-up of fine actors including James Coburn, Harry Guardino, Fess Parker, Bobby Darin and Bob Newhart – in his first acting gig.\u00a0 This was produced a year before McQueen’s role in The Great Escape and was directed by Don Siegel who went on to direct several great Clint Eastwood films such as Dirty Harry and Play Misty For Me.<\/p>\n

John Reese (Steve McQueen) a former sergeant,\u00a0is now a private because he loses control when not in combat, \u00a0“but when the chips are down, he’s a damn good soldier.”\u00a0 He and a small squad of men are ordered to hold their defence against a whole\u00a0company of German soldiers\u00a0on the Siegfried Line, until reinforcements arrive.\u00a0 The problem is the Germans begin to encroach upon the squad picking off the men, one by one.\u00a0 It is Reese’s idea to take the battle to the Germans, in order to indicate that the allies have the upper hand, and he wants to move on the closest pillbox – through barbed wire and landmines.\u00a0 Needless to say, the first attempt is a failure.\u00a0 Reese can’t get an even break, as his ass is constantly being chewed out by Captain Loomis (Joseph Hoover), and during the second attempt he’s forced at the forefront by the same dear captain.<\/p>\n

There is a\u00a0flaw when the soldiers are\u00a0moving through a mine field in the dark, on their belly using their hands to feel\u00a0for the mines, however Siegel’s creativity with other shots –\u00a0as the men move through the dragon’s teeth, also a great overhead shot of a dying soldier with his guts shot out, as well as live \u00a0footage edited in – justifies any weaknesses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy.\u00a0 Viewed on Turner Classic Movies. New Hollywood began to emerge in the 1960’s bringing a plethora of great war films to the big screen.\u00a0 Whereas the\u00a01940’s war films were generally patriotic with wholesome characters representing the allied forces, the 1960’s war films were often questionable regarding motives.\u00a0 Among some of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-tv-programming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5017\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}