Iron Angel (1964)

Let's be realistic.

i must have seen a different film!!

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

"Iron Angel" features a decent cast saddled with a poverty row budget and a low energy script. Seriously, typical episodes of the TV shows "Combat!" and "Rat Patrol" had more oomph, and better props, scenery and photography, and I wished I was watching either of those two shows rather than this movie before it was over.Any chance the movie has to immerse the audience in the characters and their quest in the early scenes start is sandbagged by three completely jarring flashbacks to "party scenes" (featuring strippers and coochie girls) that look like they were subcontracted to Coleman "Beast of Yucca Flats" Francis. They completely blow the mood and just seem to be there to let L.Q. Jones do his "Red Skelton" impression.The movie improves a bit when the soldiers come across an unconscious nurse and her ambulance, but not much, and the rest of movie is just your basic by-the-numbers.I'm sure the audience of the day didn't pay too much attention to "Iron Angel" even while the members were watching in a matinées or in a drive in. It was there, some actors got to pay their rent because of it, and that's about all you can say for it.

In a similar vein as Beach Red, there are flashbacks to time spent partying with women, a not unrealistic activity for the troops to be engaged in. But it doesn't make for a good war movie. Beach Red is somewhat better and it has Rip Torn. There is a much too long flashback scene of a stripper which is quite disturbing. The director's wife/girlfriend maybe. Why those scenes were in there is anybody's guess. One showed that Reb liked his parties and that might explain why he got busted down to a private but that's the closest the flashbacks come to adding to the story.This movie is about a patrol behind enemy lines, looking to knock out an enemy mortar which is cutting a supply road. The story is pretty good, the action is fair, the combat stuff is not so great. I guess none of them ever heard the term 'flank'. It does the job though. There's some humor but nothing you can't live without. Overall the whole movie is quite tepid. It is a rare movie about the Korean War but it's no Pork Chop Hill or Men in War. Well, maybe they aren't that rare. I have seven or so Korean War movies.Anyway, worth a watch. 5/10

**Spoilers** Sent behind enemy lines to knock out a North Korean gun emplacement, that kept critical supplies from being trucked to the front lines, the squad of GI's lead by the fearless but not too on the ball Let. Collins, Joe Jenckes, walk right into a Commie ambush! During the fire fight it was Let. Collins who ended up getting the worst of it by ending up dead. With Sgt. Walsh (Jim Davis), whom the late Let. Collins hated like poison, now in command the bloodied and rag-tag group of GI's continued on their mission.Coming across a shot up, by North Korean MIGS, US Army combat ambulance Sgt. Walsh finds the only survivor being Nurse Laura Fleming, Margo Woode, a lieutenant in the US Army Medical Corps. By having Let. Fleming tag along with them, in her combat ambulance, makes Sgt. Welsh and his men a tempting target for the Communist North Koreans in that they stick out in the barren Korean landscape like a sore thumb. It also creates a lot of tension between Sgt. Walsh and his men in that they haven't seen a woman, and American at that, since they left Japan to fight in Korea. ****SPOILERS**** What's the most shocking surprise of all is that it's later found out that the late Let. Collins was engaged to be married to Nurse Fleming, small world isn't it, who had nothing good to say, even with his last dying breath, about her rescuer Sgt. Walsh! Even though there was rough going in finding the North Korean gun emplacement with half of Sgt. Walsh's men getting picked off by Commie snipers it was the very fact that Nurse Fleming's combat ambulance, in the North Koreans trying to knock it out, that exposed the gun's position. that made it possible for Sgt. Welsh and what was left of his patrol to finally put it out of action. The acting lifts the film "Iron Angel" a notch above the material in it that at times makes you forget just how crummy it is. There's also a number of confusing flashbacks having to do with Sgt. Welsh and his men in better times outside the Korean war-zone where they did nothing but party drink and make out with what looked like a bevy of busty looking hookers who, in them being stationed in Japan & Korea, were anything but Oriental! There's also-for reasons I couldn't quite figure out-the theme music of the Ed Woods bad movie classic "Plan Nine from Outer Space" which was played in its entirety twice during the film!

This is a low low low budget mid 60's flick that "guest stars" L Q Jones who in my opinion is way overrated to be garnering anything called guest star (the only thing good I've seen him in was the Wild Bunch, he plays a stupid redneck in all the roles I've seen him in intentionally or not). Here are some quotes to this movie to give you an idea of it: "OK night fighter" (Red talking a black soldier), "Those guys are so small how did they get that gun up here?" (LQ Jones looking at the taken machine gun position), "I Wish Somebody Would Tell Those Gooks This Is A Police Action, they think it's war!" Red while getting shot at by the North Korean soldiers. The bright spot to watching low low budget 50's to 70's stuff is the odd stuff you wont see in a traditional studio film. In this case it's Red's flashbacks which are erotic involving soldiers and loose horny women. One flashback has a bunch of stripper's getting wild with a bunch of soldiers and another has a nurse getting intimate inside a public ward with a wounded soldier, in either case I don't think I've ever seen that done on film so Iron Angel is worth catching at least once for the cult movie watchers out there. There is another flashback from LQ that has a Go Go dancer in her 50's with what looks to be a cesarean scare from her navel, the camera stays way too long and close on her! LOL. If I didn't mention much about combat it's because there isn't much! Its available at amazon as part of the Millcreek 50 Movie Pack Combat Classics. I give it a 5 of 10 for not being a total waste of time, probably made in its time as a drive in theater make out flick.UPDATE: I see my review is getting some thumbs down and I am going to guess it's because I said bad things about LQ Jones. I'm sure the stuff he did after the early 70's was decent so my comment about him refers to his 1960's to early 70's work which comprised mostly low budget drive in material.