Watch What Price Glory For Free

To me, this movie is perfection.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Marine buddies James Cagney (as Captain Flagg) and Dan Dailey (as Sergeant Quirt) carouse through World War I, and eventually become rivals for the affections of beautifully-proportioned Frenchwoman Corinne Calvet (as Charmaine). Newly arriving from Philadelphia, handsome 22-year-old Robert Wagner (as Private Lewisohn) is attracted to local 17-year-old Marisa Pavan (as Nicole Bouchard). The pretty, dark-haired girl's father is upset. Rivaling Mr. Wagner for handsomeness, Craig Hill (as Aldrich) asks the titular question, "What price glory?" Future TV stars William Demarest and Harry Morgan support the troops... This successful stage comedy-drama became a huge "silent" film hit for Fox in 1926, winning Quigley Publications "Best Picture" award and rising high in everyone's "Ten Best" list for the year. This 1952 re-make did not score as well with audiences... One of the original film's "all-talking" comedy sequels was the semi-musical "The Cock-Eyed World" (1929), which is how this project was initially envisioned. We have colorful cinematic sets, a few remaining musical performances and stage-lighting techniques. Director John Ford and the Fox personnel assembled were much more aware of the earlier films, helping to explain this misfire. The story began as an anti-war statement; while present, the point gets lost in the inebriated interplay between Mr. Cagney and Mr. Dailey. The actors are forced to alternate between broad "F Troop"-style antics and the accumulation of dead bodies. ***** What Price Glory (7/25/52) John Ford ~ James Cagney, Dan Dailey, Corinne Calvet, Robert Wagner

I can't remember the silent version, which I saw years ago. I think it's probably best known for the fact that the cuss words of Captain Flagg and Sergeant Quirt were clearly discernible, even to viewers without advanced training in lip reading. I have no idea what the original play was like.Ford's version could be described as pointless, energetic, and at times extremely amusing. There are battle scenes, of course, because this romantic triangle between Flagg (Cagney), Quirt (Dailey), and Charmaine (Calvet) is being played out against the muddy background of World War I. But, with a few exceptions, the combat scenes, like the romance, are played for laughs. And not in the black-comedy manner of "Dr. Strangelove," either. (That sort of ridiculous tragedy might be beyond Ford's comprehension.) No, the shots of Dailey and Cagney crawling through the mud of No Man's Land with a German prisoner in tow are funny in themselves. Even when the German is killed by shell fire and Dailey is wounded.It's in no way a "deep" film. Nothing so banal as "war is hell." And it is certainly not one of those anti-war films in which we bleed, sometimes without purpose, but we always win in the end. Flagg's unit marches off to battle yet again, with some of the men limping from wounds and Flagg himself drunk, but there is no triumphant final clash.As pure entertainment, it succeeds fully. The Ephrons, who wrote the screenplay, must have had second sight into the interests and talents of Ford, Cagney, and Dailey because they're all superb. The dialog has to be heard to be enjoyed. Waving his finger as if in an Italian opera, Cagney shouts at the heroic Robert Wagner, "Boy -- I'm going to see that you are sent up for a decoration! Furthermore -- I PERSONALLY am going to give you -- TEN FRANCS!" Cagney has never given a more outrageously animated performance, brusque, stomping, marching around, fuming, looking cockeyed. All his mannerisms are here and he plays them to the hilt. Dailey is only a few steps behind him. And Corinne Calvet as the perfidious Charmaine puts what she has into the role but the character, while maddeningly flirtatious, comes across as a little insipid too. How could it be otherwise? Look at the company she's in.Wagner's love affair with the school-girlish Marissa Pavan is taken seriously, though, and a sappy, sentimental love song is sneaked into the script. Calvet sings a couple of period songs too, but they're mercifully brief. I never cared a fig whether Flagg or Quirt or either of them got to marry Charmaine. And the "what price glory?" speech, given by a seriously wounded Marine, is misdirected at Flagg. Whatever else Flagg may be interested in, it's not glory.Ford had his demons and was not an easy man to work with, or even necessarily to be acquainted with. In his memoirs, James Cagney recounts some stunt Ford had performed over and over, involving a motorcycle and sidecar plowing into a pile of manure. The gags weren't funny. They were just sadistic and dangerous. And a few years after this release, Ford called Robert Wagner into his office and asked if he was interested in the part of Martin Pawley in the upcoming "The Searchers." Wagner eagerly said yes, and Ford asked why. Wagner explained -- great script, fascinating character, and so on, until Ford replied, "That's too bad because I've already given the part to Jeffery Hunter." The disappointed Wagner was half-way out the door when Ford stopped him. "Do you REALLY want that part badly?" "Yes," said Wagner. Ford said, "But Jeffrey Hunter is going to play it." End of interview.Ford's Schadenfreude notwithstanding, it's hard to beat this comedy for sheer momentum. When James Gleason, as a Marine General, sweeps into Cagney's office with a map he wants Cagney to examine, the two of them simply brush all the junk on Cagney's desk onto the floor and spread out the map. What kind of mind thinks up such a gesture?

In 1918, in Bar-de-Duc, France, the leader of a company of Marines in the front, Captain Flagg (James Cagney), receives a group of green replacements and his disaffection, the tough Sergeant Quirt (Dan Dailey). Their rivalry increases when they both feel attracted by the same easy woman and daughter of the local innkeeper, Charmaine (Corinne Calvet).What a disappointing and silly parody of war this "What Price Glory" is! Directed by John Ford and with James Cagney in the cast, I could not believe that this film would be so weak. Today I have watched "The Road to Glory", a great anti-war movie directed by Howard Hawks that shows the barbarian life in the trenches in WWI. However, John Ford has made neither a comedy (like Robert Altman's "MASH"), nor a romance or drama or war movie. Actually it is a messy feature, too silly and not funny for a comedy, too heavy for a romance and unreal for a drama or war, but with a magnificent cinematography and a lovely Corinne Calvet. My vote is five.Title (Brazil): "Sangue por Glória" ("Blood for Glory")

Well, despite having made "The Sands of Iwo Jima", John Ford made a movie about World War I Marines that doesn't really seem to be about Marines at all. I'm not a student of World War I Marine slang, but it seemed odd for Captain Flagg to pronounce Sergeant Quirt his "Top Soldier" and for Marines to refer to each other as soldiers. Despite the fact that they under French command, I found it odd for them to refer to being in the Army, since they are in the Corps. Go figure.The two combat scenes are amateurish, even by Ford's standards. The acting is not convincing (except when Robert Wagner dies and Cagney manages not to over-act it) and while you can believe the two main characters don't like each other at the beginning, you never believe there's some odd tie binding them together. The character development is relatively tame, with only Wagner and Harry Morgan (Colonel Potter as a Marine Corporal and quartermaster!) showing any depth among the minor Marine characters.Dan Dailey does play a convincing loud, parade ground senior NCO. He conveys the conniving and womanizing well, but when he is supposed to have finally fallen for the French beauty, it's hard to believe. Cagney plays merely a caricature of the hard-bitten, seen-it-all Marine. His final scene neither convinces you he considers staying or that the Corps means so much to him that he has to go.The worst part is when a wounded Marine shouts out the title of the movie. It's something along the lines of "Are you going to get in the game, Captain? There's two minutes left and we need a hero. What price glory, Captain? What price glory?" One can imagine that delivered stirringly by a character whose motivation we understand, but instead, it is shouted by a nameless face with only a crazed look. It also would help if the Captain had been portrayed as a glory hound instead of drunken, war-weary yet sympathetic. I guess they had to get the name of the movie in somehow....I was trying to imagine John Ford's World War I and was sadly disappointed that it wasn't more moving.