Battle Cry Review
By Don Willmott
Good
Battle Cry is a colorful and overpacked CinemaScope-era World War II epic that, at two hours and 29 minutes long, feels about as long as the Battle of the Pacific it depicts. What sets it apart from other WWII flicks is its emphasis on the psychology of soldiering rather than the logistics of battle. It's not about the assault on the beach. It's about how the soldiers have been trained to feel about the assault on the beach. The result: too much talk and not enough flamethrowing for a film that covers the war's bloodiest battles.
We begin with a trainload of Marine recruits who are so stereotypical that the solemn narrator even introduces them by their stereotype labels: the dumb north country lumberjack Andy (Aldo Ray), the All-American boy Dan (Tab Hunter), the hoodlum, the sensitive bookworm, the "Injuns" recruited for Navajo code talking, and so on. They've left behind an assortment of families and girlfriends who will haunt their thoughts and test their faithfulness throughout 10 weeks of basic training in San Diego and the ocean journey to Hawaii and beyond.
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