The Hunters (1958)

Copyright August 1958 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening at the Paramount: 26 August 1958. U.S. release: September 1958. U.K. release: 2 November 1958. Australian release: 16 October 1958. Sydney opening at the Regent. 9,679 feet. 108 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Air Force major promises his girlfriend that he will look after her pilot husband in the Korean War.NOTES: Filmed with the co-operation of the Department of Defense and the United States Air Force.COMMENT: Nobody realized it at the time, but "The Hunters" was to be Dick Powell's final movie. He then went into the TV series "Dick Powell Theater" (that's really stepping from the ultra-big screen to the ultra small). He died of cancer in his Hollywood home on the night of 2 January 1963. He was 58.One can forgive a silly, trite, conventional, Z-grade, dime-a-dozen story like "The Hunters" when at least it plays true to the viewer and doesn't raise expectations and issues which it hasn't the slightest intention of pursuing. This is the sort of cop-out script that wastes the talents of Bob Mitchum and May Britt here. If the story was just meant to serve as a peg on which to hang some high- flying action, why is there so much story and comparatively so little action? The only person to emerge with any credit from this film is surprisingly enough Robert Wagner who is reasonably effective in a standard war pictures role -- the one about the guy whose lack of team spirit causes... but who... Mitchum and Britt are wasted. This rubbish is right about the level of Richard Egan who is as ridiculous as the script here. Powell's direction is thoroughly routine on the ground. Admittedly there is some excitement in the aerial combat scenes -- but this is mainly thanks to CinemaScope.

Interesting film but you would think that there would be more action in the first hour.We're faced with a usual theme of one guy falling for another guy's girl, in this case a married girl, during war.Lee Philips really stole the acting here. Remember him as the soft-spoken principal in "Peyton Place?" He had all the answers in that film and his persona changes drastically here as an alcoholic pilot, unsure of himself and whose wife soon lands in the hands of Robert Mitchum.Robert Wagner co-stars as a young cocky pilot whose resolve is soon tested.The film takes off when all 3 land in a North Korean infested place as Mitchum and Wagner take care of a badly wounded Philips.The film shows the brutality of the Communists when a poor oriental farming family are machine gunned for hiding the 3 guys.In typical Hollywood fashion, the film shows dedication, duty and resolve of our fighting men and that marriage is still a sacred institution.

Robert Mitchum first served in Korea in 1952. That time he was in the army in Tay Garnett's One Minute To Zero and Richard Egan was also along for the ride. Six years later he was back as a jet pilot in Dick Powell's The Hunters and Richard Egan was also along for the ride. In both movies Mitchum was a career serviceman who'd served in WWII and in each he was give a ho-hum love interest, respectively Ann Blyth and Mai Britt. 'Zero' is now remembered, if at all, for the great 'standard' that emerged from it, Victor Young's When I Fall In Love which, like Laura, was heard only instrumentally in the film. Dick Powell, something of a joke as a crooner, graduated to straight acting and then to directing and worked with Mitchum memorably on The Enemy Below. Here he turns in a decent enough melodrama with flying sequences.

Now in DVD, THE HUNTERS is about the US Air Force during the Korean War; more exactly about a love triangle involving two pilots, and one man's wife. This 1957 movie --- like many films made back when Hollywood was patriotic --- featured real life World War II heroes both on screen and behind the cameras.With most of the focus on the in-air combat and personal relationships on the ground, very little is devoted to what the Korean War was all about. That's too bad, but it made sense in 1957 as there were simply no anti-war advocates. I was in school at that time and I can recall absolutely no anti-war talk at school, at home, on the air, or in the press. Any person doing so would have been considered a traitor and rejected on a social level, if not punched around a few times. We all knew the USA and other countries were fighting not just North Korea but Red China and Stalin's Russia; testing our mettle on Korea's soil. I knew many slightly older guys who went into combat. Not one ever said anything against their task, not during the war or after. It was a tough war, certainly compared to Iraq, and America was losing it for month-after-month until the Inchon Invasion turned it around. With nuclear attack a real possibility, and both Russia and China led by sociopaths who murdered millions of their own people, concerns were severe and everyday.I originally saw this at the World Premiere held at Washington's finest ever movie palace, Loew's Capitol, with Robert Mitchum, Robert Wagner, and the US Air Force Band on stage.