A Walk in the Sun (1945)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

A Walk in the Sun lacks intensity of Lewis Milestone's masterpiece All Quiet on the Western Front. In fact there is too much jaw jaw as the platoon soldiers chat among each other while walking.A platoon lands in Italy with the object to take a Nazi held farmhouse, their lieutenant is injured and it is up to the platoon's sergeants to lead them further and achieve their aims.This is an unsentimental look at the life of the infantrymen, we get to learn about their background and what makes them tick. The trouble is it's all a bit dull. The film has a solid cast but I felt they could had done with more snappier and profound dialogue.

This rotten tomato got the axe at the 26 minute mark ... when some bozo rattles off about the 1955 battle of Tibet for the 3rd time (movie takes place in 43). This is seriously one of the worst WW2 films I have seen ... and I have seen many! On the boring meter it sits atop with the French film "A Man Escaped" ... which was at least artistic.Seriously 90% of the film is idle chatter and that does not make for a good film. More so you can tell that very little money was spent on the film ... it is borderline amateur. Finally the singing narration ... that may have been a good idea in 1945 but it torpedoes in 2015.I could tell this film would get the gong within the first 5 minutes ... yet I tried to hang in there ... thinking it may pull up from the dive ... it did not. Don't waste your time.POST: I cannot believe our boys were such morons as the men portrayed in this film were. This was my parents generation and very few were this simple.

I first saw A Walk in the Sun in the early 1960's on TV with my Dad, who was a combat veteran of the 36th Infantry Division. His unit was made up of Texas National Guard soldiers and draftees that was one of the first US Army units that landed in Europe at Paestrum, Italy in September 1943.The movie depicts a rifle company assigned to capture a farmhouse inland from the Salerno, Italy beachhead. This movie shows the operation of an infantry unit with more realism without all the special effects used by Hollywood in subsequent films. The coordination of the men and their dialog (with "loving" substituted for the beautiful soldier's language) as spoken between Richard Conte and George Tyne's characters was realistic and rang true to me as a kid growing up in Brooklyn, NY. It's interesting to note that many young actors like Lloyd Bridges and Norman Lloyd (who is still alive and active) made up an excellent ensemble cast. Years later after researching the history of the 36th Division and the Italian campaign, I feel that A Walk in the Sun along with The Story of GI Joe, most closely approximates the soldier's view of combat.

What can you expect from one of the most prolific directors ever to come from Hollywood – the man responsible for All quiet on the western front (1930), Rain (1932), Of Mice and Men (1939), The Strange love of Martha Ivers (1946) and many, many others? Well, nothing less than one of the most personal views of war since All Quiet (1930)...Deeply introspective, deceptively comedic, disturbingly real, this account of one day in the life and death of a platoon of American soldiers landing at Salerno in Italy, in 1943, must rank as one of the most poignant snapshots of war ever put to film, and, in my opinion, an excellent example of how to make good cinema – despite the "bells and whistles", so to speak, for that time: the narration by Burgess Meredith and the ballad sung by Kenneth Spencer (who sounds uncannily like Paul Robeson, I think). Those two aspects certainly date this production, more or less, if you didn't know it was made in 1945. Hollywood was, at those times, very big on ballads with dramas; need I say Gene Autry, Roy Rodgers et al?Some might even be bored with the long introduction to the landing, when the viewer is introduced to each of the main characters by way of their interaction with others; or as whimsical introspection as some, like Pvt. Craven (John Ireland), contemplate the nature of life, death and the whole damn thing. In succession, the viewer knows the quiet strength and honesty of Sgt. Tyne (Dana Andrews); the hip repartee between Pvts Rivera and Friedman (Richard Conte & George Tyne); the earthy homeliness of Sgt Ward (Llyod Bridges); the innocence of Pvt Judson (Steve Brodie); and many other well known character actors who were the mainstays of so many black and white classics of that time.The platoon's mission is simple: advance to the enemy lines to a certain farmhouse a few miles inland; attack and kill/capture the enemy; and secure the position. Simple enough, except that the platoon lieutenant is killed before landing, forcing the top sergeant Eddie Porter (Herbert Rudley) to take over. Unhappily, his nerves are shredded from too much battle fatigue, and shortly after, he's reduced to tearful inaction, thus forcing another change in leadership to Sgt. Tyne who then rallies the men to get the job done. It's a dramatic scenario that must have happened in real life, maybe many times.The dialog is the best aspect of this story, no question, showing just how ordinary men do act and think to keep their courage and sanity in desperate situations, knowing that their next step might be their last, but ready to do their duty come what may. I know that sounds corny and maybe it is, but without some sense of the need to get a dangerous job done – even at the highest personal cost – there can be no victory over evil. In its small way, this movie encapsulates all that is honourable about the human spirit while also exploring its limits. A contrasting example – but a very similar story line and mise-en-scene – was Attack (1956), a gripping psychological tussle between Jack Palance, Lee Marvin and Eddie Albert, also in a remote farm house. For younger viewers than I, a more recent comparison that comes to my mind is Malick's The Thin Red Line (1998), an account of a battle for a hilltop on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands – and again, very much under the sun. I'd recommend both of those films also.Some would argue, perhaps, that the production standards of this film were clunky, even laughably fake. They would be those who can't see the wood for the trees: a cast of characters so real that you can see part of yourself in every one of them with no difficulty at all. And as the narrative unfolds on that very ordinary day, I was in fact caught thinking about the limits of my own courage when faced with the ever present shadow of death...So, I guess I can fault the production for using what looked like P51 Mustangs as German or Italian fighters; I can raise an eyebrow at the low budget special effects; or the unaccountable lack of sweat on any of the soldiers as they walk in the sun, for Pete's sake, for a whole day...But you can't ignore the sheer honesty of the narrative; the stark black-and-white photography; the great tracking shots used in battle; or the quick and very effective cuts between different pairs of soldiers as they discuss whatever soldiers discuss during battle and during the lulls that form the bulk of all soldiers' stories.If you are a fan of the war genre, this is a must-see movie.