The Hunters (1958)

the audience applauded

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Just perfect...

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Robert Mitchum first served in Korea in 1952. That time he was in the army in Tay Garnett's One Minute To Zero and Richard Egan was also along for the ride. Six years later he was back as a jet pilot in Dick Powell's The Hunters and Richard Egan was also along for the ride. In both movies Mitchum was a career serviceman who'd served in WWII and in each he was give a ho-hum love interest, respectively Ann Blyth and Mai Britt. 'Zero' is now remembered, if at all, for the great 'standard' that emerged from it, Victor Young's When I Fall In Love which, like Laura, was heard only instrumentally in the film. Dick Powell, something of a joke as a crooner, graduated to straight acting and then to directing and worked with Mitchum memorably on The Enemy Below. Here he turns in a decent enough melodrama with flying sequences.

Set during the Korean War, this picture features the fine talent of Robert Mitchum as Major Cleve Saville and a young fresh faced Robert Wagner as the cocksure Lt Ed Pell. As the war rages, and the airmen deal with the pressures that come with the service, Saville starts to fall in love with the wife (a very weak May Britt) of one of his men, thus adding further pressures to a company growing weary by the day. The Hunters, based on the novel written by James Salter, is a very solid picture, perhaps bogged down by it's determination to give the picture emotional heart, it never the less thrills with its aerial sequences and is awash with glorious colour that new televisual technology can enhance, it's also a film that definitely needs to be seen in widescreen.By not outstaying its welcome, The Hunters is the perfect film for genre fans who find themselves stuck in the house on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Though Mitchum of course oozes his usual screen presence here, he is playing second fiddle to the F-86 Sabres that are swishing about the bright blue sky, dog fighting with the Migs (well F-84 Thunders cunningly disguised as Migs) and thus giving the picture the necessary action quotient. Films set in the Korean War are few and far between, so to at least have a film like The Hunters to view when in the mood is surely a really good thing. 6/10

Apart from "M*A*S*H" (and even that is, to many people, better remembered as a TV series than as a film) there are not too many well-known Korean War films. I had never heard of this one, which details the part played by the US Air Force in that conflict, but I caught it when it was shown on British television last week.I note that one reviewer entitled his review "A must see for jet air-to-air combat enthusiasts". Whereas his review was, in fact, very helpful in terms of explaining the historical background to the film, that title did make me think "What about the rest of us? What does the film have to offer the average viewer, or even the average film buff, as opposed to the military aviation buff?" I suppose part of the answer to that question is that the film tries to be a character study of men at war. Apart from the military action in which American pilots take on the MiGs of the Chinese air force, the film also charts the relationships between squadron commander Major Cleveland Saville and two of the men under his command, Lieutenant Edward Pell and the depressive, heavy-drinking Lieutenant Carl Abbott. In addition, a romance develops between Saville and Abbott's glamorous Norwegian wife Kristina, who feels neglected by her husband.There are similarities between this film and "The War Lover" from four years later. That film was about the Second World War, but also starred Robert Wagner (who here plays Pell) as a young Air Force pilot who comes into conflict with his superior officer (played in that film by Steve McQueen). Like "The Hunters", "The War Lover" features a love-triangle involving that superior officer and one of the men under his command. There is, however, a difference. In "The Hunters" Saville, played by Robert Mitchum, is supposed to be cool and unemotional (he has won the nickname "The Iceman"), whereas Pell is a brilliant pilot but hotheaded and impulsive. In "The War Lover" it is exactly the other way round. Wagner's character, Lieutenant Bolland, is the conformist, by-the-book flier, whereas his superior, Captain Rickson, is the unorthodox but brilliant rebel against authority.Another difference between the two films is in the balance between the combat scenes and the scenes set on the ground. The air combat scenes in "The Hunters" are indeed very well done, far better than anything in "The War Lover" and the best that I have seen in any film of this period. Indeed, they can stand comparison with similar scenes in modern films, even though there were no computer-generated effects available to film-makers in the fifties, and are the main reason why I have given the film an above-average mark."The Hunters", however, is a much less impressive film when it leaves the skies and comes down to earth. The scenes at the end when Saville and Pell are trying to rescue Abbott, who has been shot down over enemy-held territory, are no more than routine war heroics. "The War Lover" was, on the human level, a powerful emotional drama, the main interest of which lay in the changing dynamics of the triangular relationship between Rickson, Bolland and their mutual love-interest, Daphne. In "The Hunters", by comparison, the romance between Saville and Kristina is perfunctory and unconvincing. The personality clash between Saville and Pell, moreover, is more apparent than real. Saville's nickname of "The Iceman" is largely undeserved. An officer who seduces a brother-officer's wife and who keeps discipline by punching on the jaw any subordinate who gets out of line (as Saville does to both Abbott and Pell) is hardly icy.When I reviewed "The War Lover", I stated that it may not be a particularly gripping war adventure but it is certainly gripping when seen as a human drama. "The Hunters", by contrast, has some great action scenes, but as a human drama it is unconvincing. 6/10

I never did get to see this as a kid and when I did as an adult I really enjoyed it. Great flying scenes and cinematography. Of course a great cast with Mitchum, Egan and Wagner made a wonderful dynamic. The romance with Abbott's wife was refreshing and made the movie more human. The sets and costumes were amazing and the locations too. The guns and planes, cars and rough and dirty environment made this more realistic and fun to watch. Seeing Richard Egan with a leather flight jacket and a .45 on his hip as the squadron commander was a thrill as he was always one of my favorites. One of the really cool "old Hollywood" guys. Masculine, but with soft features and an understanding for everything around. Young Robert Wagner is always fun and reminded me of the Spencer Tracy movie he did when they pilfered the downed airliner in the Swiss Alps. Great matinée flick.