Fixed Bayonets! (1951)

Perfect cast and a good story

Good concept, poorly executed.

As Good As It Gets

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.

FIXED BAYONETS! is an American-made Korean war movie about a platoon of soldiers who agree to fight a desperate rearguard action to hold off enemy troops to allow the rest of the army to depart from the area. The majority of the running time sees said platoon holed up in an icy cave and struggling to cope with everything the enemy throws at them.This is a simply-plotted film without much in the way of characterisation, although the action scenes are well handled and emphasis suspense over effects, which is always good. Richard Basehart plays the sweating corporal who discovers himself inching nearer and nearer to command as each of his superiors is killed in turn by the fighting. It's this internal conflict which propels the story but I did find it largely stretched out and uninteresting. The camaraderie and dialogue scenes are well handled however and the humour is a welcome asset. Watch out for James Dean in a cameo role.

I finally got to watch this film not even knowing about it until pretty much now. I'm in my late 40's and watched multiple times Men In War and Pork Chop Hill because they were always on the TV as I was growing up, I'm a Navy Vet who served on the ground (behind the wire) in Iraq, so that is my background and experiences. I had seen The Steel Helmet before, and though this is going to sound sacrilegious, I was not that satisfied with it. This is an enjoyable war film, I liked it more then the Steel Helmet, less then Men In War and Pork Chop Hill. I give it the average rating of 7 I don't think it's a masterpiece or that its horrible, and 7 of 10 is a good score for a film. I thought the running drama of Basehart not wanting command was extremely dragged out and unnecessary, and a lot of the foot soldiers dialog was on the borderline WW2 film stupid. Also, like some of the 1 star reviews stated, the extreme cold and them constantly getting wet was hard to take. But my biggest criticisms were, where is the air cover, or where is the North Korean air assets if we didn't have any, and why did they leave this small group there for what seems like days? On the positive side, the battle scenes at least at first were shockingly good, totally above most war movies made up to that point (1951), the first battle scene comes close to All Quiet On The Western Front quality in my book. So I was satisfied watching this film and recommend it to all war film lovers, 7 out of 10.BTW a Medal Of Honor recipient, Raymond Harvey, was the technical adviser on this film, his bio is interesting, I wish they would just make films based on their actions alone, and leave out the silly melodrama but in 1951 I guess it was still necessary. Also, if it has not been mentioned by others supposedly this is James Dean's first movie, people have posted the specific part on youtube, I watched the whole film and never spotted him even though he has dialog, see if you can find him!

And I am afraid that I cannot imagine why. It really is a genuinely dire and exceptionally boring film. In some ways it is reminiscent of early science fiction when every set had been knocked up on a Hollywood back lot out of whatever was lying around. From the minuscule and unconvincing set (snipers seem to be about ten meters away) apparently made of plaster, to the actors who are also apparently made of plaster with "amusing" stereotypes painted thinly on top, to the oddly warm pool in a frozen cave, to the survival of the cast uninjured when medium artillery shells burst a few meters away on open ground, and finally the awful script that reads like a training manual more than a film.... I really cannot say how dull this is. Even the opportunity to see whether the young James Dean survived wasn't enough to keep me watching for more than an hour. This really is one to be avoided at ALL costs.

Fixed Bayonets completes director Samuel Fuller's one-two of 1951 movies about the Korean War, the other being the equally (maybe even slightly better) gritty and gripping The Steel Helmet. For those unfamiliar with Fuller's style, let's just say it is as far removed as possible from what Hollywood passes for war movies the past 20 years. No sentimentality and schmaltz here, just a straight-forward and fine-tuned soldier movie, from the boys, for the boys.Fuller, a war veteran himself, takes a no-frills, realistic approach. With a tight script that weaves themes of courage and confronting one's fears into superb suspense and action scenes that have stood the test of time admirably, Fixed Bayonets does exactly what it says on the cover. The miniature work is decent enough and the studio backlot that passes for the Korean mountains completes the illusion without distractions. It's still a low-budget b-movie but it's holding well at the seams. The acting is all-around solid with Gene Evans once again stealing the show as the gruffy, no-nonsense Sgt. Rock.Having worked as a journalist for New York newspapers in his younger years, Fuller understands the importance of story above all. Sure, he's not exactly the epitome of subtle - the inner monologues for example should have been avoided altogether. But I'm willing to ignore that because his movies have a sense of urgency and conviction that is hard to find: he's a man with a story to tell, he grabs you by the shoulder and says "this is how it happened, now watch this". And "this" is not about the politics or dramatization of war but war itself, men killing other men in some snowy hills in the middle of nowhere.