Eight Iron Men (1952)

EIGHT IRON MEN has one of those screenplays that started life as a stage play, so the action is centred in a single location. It's the tale of a group of WW2-era soldiers who are pinned down in a single location and must figure out a way to rescue their wounded colleague on the outset. I feel that such plays are hit or miss affairs and sadly this is one of the more dated examples of its type. The action is sparse and the dialogue comes thick and heavy, but the actors struggle with their uninteresting roles and lead Bonar Colleano is particularly irritating. You do get Lee Marvin delivering a typically bullish turn but his presence isn't enough to save the movie as a whole.

Stanley Kramer always made such wonderful social conscious films such Judgment at Nuremberg, the hilarious comedy It's A Mad Mad Mad World and The Defiant Ones. He must have had a bad day when he made this 1952 misery of a film.We never see the enemy. We don't know exactly where the film is taking place and the scenes with the women are absolutely contrived and out right ridiculous at best.For 1952, Lee Marvin looks old already and war in itself is made to look ludicrous by what Small was doing all along during this 80 minute film debacle.Of course, you make every effort to save a missing soldier cornered by the enemy. The enemy was the one who thought of such a miserable film.

At first may seem like a poorly written and acted movie but you must REMEMBER that this movie was made in 1952 and one must use his/her imagination to fill in the missing special effects that we've been forced to endure.Many movies of the era used the same format but the movie was about individual soldiers and not the war. I'm sure combat veterans would be better suited to comment on the goodness/badness of the film but suspect they would like it.Maybe Lee Marvin's first starring role? But the character of Sergeant Joe Mooney was carried out thru his career and it is always a pleasure to watch.A good movie for its time and remains so in my humble opinion.

***SPOILERS*** Based on the little know 1945 Broadway play "A Sound of Hunting". The film "Eight Iron Men" has to do with a US infantry squad pinned down by German machine gun fire in an Italian town during the battle of Mount Cassino. One of the squad members Pvt.Smalls, George Cooper, end up stuck in a bomb crater with his fellow GI's tying to get him back, not knowing if he's either dead or alive, to safety and risking the entire infantry company by doing it.Realistic and gritty war drama with Lee Marvin in his first staring role as Sgt. Mooney as he together with the rest of his squad are willing to risk their lives to save the life of a fellow GI. Pvt. Smalls turns out to have been fast asleep, with a twisted ankle and a shot of morphine, in a shell crater and totally unaware of all the commotion that he caused. Defying orders from their commanding Officer Capt. Treiawny, Barney Phillips, Sgt. Mooney's squad refuses to withdraw giving the Captain fits with him on the verge of having court-martial Mooney and the rest of his men if he didn't comply. It turns out that squad members would rather spend the rest of their live in the brig knowing that they did their best to rescue one of theirs, a member of the "Eight Iron Men", then live the rest of their lives as free men not knowing that their inaction was the cause his death.There's a somewhat comedy bit thrown into the story about a fruitcake that's to be split up between the GI's and the last piece, after the other even were given out to the men in the squad, is left for Pvt. Smalls. That causes a lot of tension with the men not knowing if Smalls is even alive to eat it and at the same time wanting to eat the goodie themselves. We also have the usual goof-off of the outfit Pvt. Collucci, Bonar Colleano, who likens himself to be a modern day Casanova with the ladies. Since there's no women in the deserted burnt and blasted town we have a number of dream sequences put into the film where lover-boy Collucci has all the beautiful dames that he can or even, and that may be asking a bit too much of Collucci,can't handle. Collucci is such a great lover, in his own mind, that he's even able to steal away the girl that fellow GI Pvt. Ferguson,James Griffith,had just married in his dream! Thats something which I doubt that even the great Cassanove would be able to do on his best day or night.Sgt. Mooney and a number of his men going out to fetch the missing Pvt. Smalls are pinned by German machine gun fire and forced to retreat back to their defensive position. Just when he and his men are about to give up on ever finding Smalls Pvt. Collucci the great lover turns into the great warrior as he single handed takes out the German machine gun nest and a German sniper. Grabbing an unconscious, due to his injecting himself with morphine, Pvt. Smalls Collucci brings him back to the squad headquarters. Just when, a totally shocked and happily surprised, Sgt. Mooney and his men were about to leave without him or the already left for dead Pvt. Smalls.Pvt. Collucci became the unlikely hero of the entire squad. In the end he got something far more real and satisfying then all the imagery gorgeous babes that he dreamed about all throughout the film. A real honest to goodness second piece of that delicious fruitcake. The piece that was reserved for the missing Pvt. Smalls.