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Fresh and Exciting

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This is a very, very familiar sort of film. It features a group of raw recruits going through basic training with a tough as nails Sergeant--the same sort of thing you'd see in "Battle Cry", "Sands of Iwo Jima" and even "Full Metal Jacket" and a bazillion other war flicks made by Hollywood. There are only a few other differences--this was a Korean War-era film (and they didn't make all that many compared to the more 'popular' wars like WWII) and the Sergeant really is a nut-job! While other Sergeants SEEM like crazy men, Richard Widmark's version really is emotionally disturbed--like the sort of guy you might see on "The Jerry Springer Show" as they slap or get slapped by their woman! And, since there are so many BETTER but similar sorts of films, my recommendation is to see them first. This one isn't bad, but I just felt that the psychological aspects of it and the twisted relationship between Widmark and a lady me loved to emotionally torment really detracted from the movie.What to dislike about the film--Widmark was a nut. What to like--Karl Malden was very good, as always.

The staple of war movies is the Basic Training Movie, where raw recruits are transformed from peace loving civilians into competent and capable fighting men. Thorne Ryan (Richard Widmark) and subordinate LaVerne Holt (Karl Malden) have returned from combat duty in Korea to Fort Bliss, Texas where they are assigned Drill Sargent duty. Ryan loathes his seemingly thankless task of running the recruits through uniform issue, close order drill, and rifle cleaning, preferring instead to fight communists in Korea. Ryan starts his recruits off with the proclamation, "You will never make it!" Laverne seems more content in his job and is happy to be in his station. The two then proceed to train the cross section of city boys, country boys, educated boys, goof-balls, idiots and klutzes into fighting machines.Two subplots emerge; first the meeting of Julie Mollison (Elaine Stewart), the ex-wife of a combat casualty, who it is suggested to somehow have brought about the soldier's death by her desertion of their marriage after he deployed. Ryan and Holt, nevertheless, compete for her affections. Ryan holds her with disdain at the outset, but is soon overcome by her seeming helplessness. Holt does not care to judge her at all. He accepts her as she is. Julie seems to only to like the soldier with the highest rank.The other weaker subplot involves the rivalry between Sargents, pitting Ryan against a Master Sargent who outranks him but does not have the hallowed Infantry Badge (a symbol of combat experience). There are the requisite fights and male posturing typical in military situations. The young recruits suffer exhaustion, panic, and rage at their Drill Instructors as they master the craft of soldiering. The location of the border town of El Paso provides an interesting twist in the off duty experiences of the recruits where they somehow find the only Anglo woman in the bars of Juarez while the Mexican women populate the background shots with barely any attention at all.One of the stars of the movie is the desert background of El Paso, Texas where location filming took place. The end of the movie is somewhat predictable and comes off as a recruiting tool for the U.S. Army, but as war buddy movies go this one has sufficient tension to keep most viewers entertained.

I could tell this plot less film would go downhill from the beginning. In the opening scene we see a platoon of soldiers attacking a North Korean position, and one of them casually stops for a drink and is shot by an enemy soldier with a U.S. Army M1 rifle! That a real soldier would do this under fire, and that the props department couldn't afford an AK-47 speaks volumes about this film.Then we go to Fort Bliss for what is supposed to be boot camp but is actually a summer camp for teenagers. I say this as an Army veteran.Richard Widmark was on loan to the studio that made this film, but I think he should have remained with his contract studio, for I don't believe "Take the High Ground" was a milestone of his career.

While this may not be the movie that made me want to join the Army in 1956, it may have helped. The plot is a formulaic coming of age in basic training story, turning boys into men. The personal interactions and love affairs of Widmark and Malden, the veterans of Korea who are now leading a trainng platoon at Fort Bliss, Texas, next to El Paso are also formulaic.The real value of this picture is as a time capsule. Nothing herein is BS, dreamed up, or recreated such as are Platoon, or Full Metal Jacket or Apocalypse Now, to mention some more modern highly praised but highly fictionalized films. Nor is it an anachronistic mish mash such or a low budget BW cheapie such as many of that period were.Everything shown here is as it was at the time of filming and the background extras and other military individuals were actually going through infantry training with the real possibility of going to combat in Korea when it was being made. (An amusing aspect is that the opening scene of the newly arrived trainees and the disciplined troops entraining for their new assignments were filmed on the same day with the same Southern Pacific locomotive and equipment. Yet supposedly took place three months apart.)Other time capsule films of the time are Bombers B-57, and Strategic Air Command, which prove that officially approved films can be entertaining and informative both.