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The Worst Film Ever

Excellent but underrated film

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

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.

This is one of those 'before I was a megastar' turkeys that are best forgotten.Starring Richard Burton and Kurt Jurgens as British army officers serving in the middle-east during WW2; they are also the male corners of a predictably tedious love-triangle.Despite themselves and a decent sprinkling of familiar faces from the time, they all collectively fail to salvage anything but their pay-cheques from this formulaic hokum.Quite frankly; it's inept. In fact it's boring. The mission seems badly-planned and implausible from the outset. The conflicts are contrived, the tension scarcely noticeable. More effort seems to have gone into the model of the town that everyone is poring-over at the outset than has been applied to the 'real' stage sets. Filmed in black and white, that and the lighting are at least competent, but sound, effects, editing and script scarcely manage B-movie standards. The jealous exchanges between Burton and Jurgens are particularly banal and stagy.Unless you happen to be a rabid fan of either star, this is definitely one to miss. Which is a shame really; its 1950's vintage and black-&-white photography seem to promise so much more. The similarly styled and vintaged 'Ice Cold In Alex' could knock it into a cocked hat.

I liked this one quite a bit. First of all Richard Burton was a great actor, and this is the best performance I've seen from him. You can feel his world weariness just dripping off him. Curd Jurgens is also really good in a very demanding role. Basically the whole movie is about their relationship, and they hate each other. There's no big resolution where they suddenly respect each other like you would get in a formula movie. A lot of the point is that Jurgens' character isn't respectable, and the main revelation is that he comes to feel the same way. But he's not villainous, it's easy to empathize with him even though he is sort of a cretin.The cinematography is really extraordinary, especially the scenes in the desert. It reminds me of Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia" from a few years later. I wouldn't be surprised if there was an influence. The relationship is also slightly similar to the one between O'Toole and Shariff's characters in that film.The movie is deceptively course and 2 dimensional, like the combat dummies who are the first and last images we see in the film. Stick figures, pretending to be men, setting themselves up as targets. It doesn't ask us to feel sorry for the characters or to admire them, they aren't "larger than life" the way most characters are in war movies. I felt like the movie was saying that war is a natural state of mankind, not some kind of romantic adventure.

Two errors in the cast:French actor Raymond Pellegrin is not credible as an Arab scout ,at least to French eyes;Ruth Roman is too cold to portray a Ray heroine successfully ;Hitchcock ,in Truffaut/Hitchcock ,said the same about her in "strangers on a train" .But it does not matter because it's a man's movie .It is curious to have cast Jurgens as an South African officer but his playing opposite a young Burton is quite efficient.The cast and credits had warned us : the enemy you fight is not the one you think of .The last scene clinches it ,when the medal amounts to nothing.This is not Ray's best film ,but it is probably his most violent one : Burton saving the dead and killing the living is impressive ;Jurgens eaten with jealousy and hatred watching the scorpion..Compare the death of Burton with that of Burl Ives in "winds across the everglades" ,the follow-up to "bitter victory" .The strange ancient city in the middle of the desert is an exact equivalent of the planetarium in "rebel without a cause" : those walls still standing and those stars in the sky will survive our little wars ,our glorious (or bitter) victories or our growing up angst.

As it were...The 2 films (this one and Flying Leathernecks) have more in common than one would like to believe, given the fact that F.L. is often thought of as not a "real" Ray film. But the rivalry between 2 military men who dance around the same rank (one being generally subservient - not by choice - to the other) is in both cases treated as as much a psychological issue as an issue of military discipline. The difference is that in F.L. the psychological aspect is soft-pedaled (except for a couple of key scenes). I have to admit that there are a couple of ways that I prefer F.L. Obviously, Bitter Victory is a much finer and more fully realized film. But it feels failed to me in some important ways: it seems to aspire to the status of independent artwork (the score, the long scenes of trudging through the desert), and as such it is not totally successful. It doesn't break free of its genre moorings the way Fuller or Sirk or Ophuls (etc.) can and often do. F.L. doesn't pretend to be more than it is: it stays solidly within genre conventions, easy resolution and all. Its lack of aspiration makes it easier to watch, to some degree. There are unforgettable moments in Bitter Victory: the scorpion, the camel bladder, the raid, the dance, the fight in the street (pure Ray). But the whole doesn't convince me, the issues don't move me. Ray often seems poised between Kazanian script and actor - driven film-making on one hand and more personal crazy auteurist cinema on the other. I haven't had that revelation that caused Godard to say "the cinema is Nicholas Ray". I'll keep trying.