All the Young Men (1960)

"All the Young Men" is a Korean war movie that finds an aging Alan Ladd and an up-and-coming Sidney Poitier leading a platoon of soldiers into a snow-bound Korean pass where they have to hold a farm-house against all the odds. It's not a bad film, just a rather formulaic one full of stock characters yet it's even quite exciting at times. The writer/producer/director was Hal Bartlett, a B-Movie stalwart of the period who liked to tackle 'difficult' issues, a kind of poor man's Sam Fuller, (Poitier's presence here ensures racism rears its ugly head). The first-rate black and white photography was by Daniel L Fapp who was to win the Oscar a year later for his work on "West Side Story".

***SPOILERS*** Picked off by a Communist Chinese sniper USMC Let. Earl Toland, Charles Quinlivan, as he's about to go under turns over command of his squad to the green and inexperienced in leading men into combat Sgt. Eddie Towler,Sidney Poitier. The thing that ticks off the men that Sgt. Towers is now in charge of is not that he's green and inexperienced but that he's black! And it's now up to Sgt. Towers, who didn't want the job anyway, to lead them out of the wilderness, or Communist North Korea, and across the 38th parallel before the Chinese Communist and their North Korean allies make mince meat out of all of them!Under Sgt. Towers' command and leadership the men in his unit capture a key position, a farm house, that's the only place where a battalion of some 1,000 retreating US Marines can make it to safety and link up with UN forces to the south preventing them from being massacred by the Communist forces. It's that position that Sgt. Towers is determined to hold to the last man grenade and round of ammunition even if he ends up being killed by one of his fellow Marines in doing it!As the Communist Chinese key in on Sgt. Towers position tensions beings to build up between him an the Marines under his command. Sgt. Kincaid, Alan Ladd, who felt that he being in the Corps for 11 years was passed over in favor of Sgt. Towers never lets him forget about it. Still Kincaid knows that by bickering with each other will only give the surrounding Communist Chinese the advantage in overrunning the farm house and reluctantly takes orders from him. It's the racist Pvt. Bracken, Paul Richards, who never lets up in letting Sgt. Towers know where to stay in his place ,the back of the bus or squad, that really gets under Sgt.Towers' black skin.The both racist as well as horny Pvt. Bracken really goes over the top when after getting good and drunk on Korean home made wine attempts to rape Eurasian, half French and half Oriental, woman of the house Maya, Ann Maria Lynch. It's then that Sgt. Towers who tried to tolerate him, for the both good and safety of the Marine unit, lost his cool and not only worked Bracken over but almost has him shot for undisciplined and un-US Marine Corps conduct! The Communist Chinese using human wave assault tactics slowly ground down the Marines defending the farmhouse and it's now up to Sgt. Towers to make the faithful decision to either abundant the farm house and leave the 1,000 US Marines who need it to brake through commie lines to their fate or die defending it!The Chinese Communists bringing in their big guns, tanks and amour units, for a final breakthrough has both Sgt. Towers and Kincaid try to disable the lead tank with Molotov cocktails, they by then ran out of grenades, with Kincaid ending up almost roasted alive in the fighting! Needing an immediate blood transfusion as well as leg amputation to save his life Kincaid is saved by both the skillful surgery, his in fact first amputation, of medic Pvt. Wade, Glenn Corbett, and Sgt. Towers who donated at least three pints of blood-O positive-to keep Kincaid from going under just like Let. Toland did earlier in the movie.***SPOILERS*** With what now looked like the end for Sgt. Towers and his Marines with the Chinese Communist troops making a major assault on the farm house the US Calvary or USAF finally comes to their rescue. As the US Air Force saber jets start blasting the Chinese Reds to bits an elated Sgt. Towers going along with them, as ground support, picks them off one by one, sniper style, with his sub-machine-gun as they try to run for cover! P.S The movie also has the then Heavyweight Champion of the World Ingemar Johansson as recently naturalized American citizen and Swedish immigrant GI Torgil. Despite his being the champ in real life Johansson instead of fighting was seen in the film mostly singing Swedish folk songs to keep the men in his Marine unit entertained!

It must have been pretty awful filming this movie at Glacier National Park. There was a lot of snow and ice as the film makers were trying to re-create the cold winter in the Korean mountains. The movie is about a group of soldiers who are cut off from the rest of their troops during the Korean War. When their commanding officer is hit, he assigns the black sergeant (Sidney Poitier) to be in charge. The other sergeant (Alan Ladd) is mad he wasn't chosen and gives Poitier a lot of crap--as does a racist man in the group who loudly voices his contempt for a black leader. This all could have been interesting, as the Korean War was the first fully integrated war for the US. Plus, there was a lot going on in 1960 regarding racial equality--so the film actually was dealing with 1960s social issues--not just the Korean War.Unfortunately, the film loses its way very quickly--mostly due to dumb casting that shows that the film makers really didn't care about racial issues. Instead, it looked almost as if the film was created by tossing darts at a cork board filled with ideas! First, perhaps "All The Young Men" started a small trend in Hollywood casting stand-up comedians in war films! Here, we have Mort Sahl (a big name during his day but all but forgotten today) and two years later, Bob Newhart was cast in "Hell is for Heroes" and a few years later Don Rickles was cast in "Kelly's Heroes". An odd mini-trend, I know. And, like Newhart's performance, Sahl inexplicably does a stand-up routine during a tiny break in the action! I am sure that happened all the time during the Korean War and WWII!!!! In addition to this dumb casting decision, the film makers also decided to insert James Darren. Now this alone is not bad--he was lovely in "The Guns of Navarone". However, like Sahl, the insane movie producers thought it would be great to have this 1950s/60s teen heart-throb sing a number as well! Think about it...it's in the middle of the snow during the Korean War and Darren's character breaks into song!!!! What were they thinking?! Did they think audiences wanted this is a war flick?! Who was their audience?! As a result, the film just came off as fake--as fake as the eyes in the obviously white extras who were cast as Koreans! The bottom line is that if the film makers didn't care enough to get the film right, why should the audience care enough to bother with the film? Plus, there are just a lot more films that deal with racism without all the superfluous crap tossed in as well! By the way, Alan Ladd appearing in such a film isn't a huge surprise, as his career was in a downward spiral--partly due to changing tastes and partly due to his alcoholism.

It seems that most war films about the Korean War during the time this one was made struggled to get their message across. They wanted to show action like all war pictures but also wanted to convey an anti-war message without being openly blatant about it. This picture while often times sluggish has some good moments in it. Comedian Mort Sahl gets a scene where he's allowed to do what he does best, semi-sarcastic comedy. All in all it's not an overly bad war film but it's not one of the better ones either. Former heavyweight champion Ingemar Johansson who hailed from Sweden has a role in this movie.