Battleground (film)

Battleground
Theatrical poster
Directed by	William Wellman
Produced by	Dore Schary Robert Pirosh
Written by	Robert Pirosh
Starring	Van Johnson John Hodiak Ricardo Montalbán George Murphy
Music by	Lennie Hayton
Cinematography	Paul Vogel
Editing by	John D. Dunning
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date(s)	November 9, 1949
Running time	118 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$2 million (est)
Box office	$5 million (app.)

Battleground is a 1949 American war film that tells the story of the 2nd Squad, 3rd Platoon of Item Company, 327th Glider Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, trying to cope with the Siege of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. It stars Van Johnson, John Hodiak, Ricardo Montalban and George Murphy, and features James Whitmore. It was directed by William Wellman from a script by Robert Pirosh.

The film is notable for portraying American soldiers as vulnerable and human, as opposed to just inspirational and gung-ho. While there is no question about their courage and steadfastness, each soldier has at least one moment in the film when he seriously considers running away, schemes to get sent away from the front line, slacks off, or complains about the situation he is in. Battleground is considered to be the first significant film about World War II to be made and released after the end of the war.

Plot

In mid-December 1944, Jim Layton (Marshall Thompson) and his buddy, William J. Hooper, replacement soldiers fresh from the United States, are assigned to separate companies in a battalion of glider infantry in the 101st Airborne Division. Holley (Van Johnson) returns to the company after recuperating from a wound. Layton discovers that as the new man in the squad, he is ignored and unwanted.

Instead of going on leave in Paris, the squad is trucked back to the front to help stop a surprise German breakthrough in the Ardennes. They stop that night in the town of Bastogne. The platoon is put up for the night in the apartment of a local young woman, Denise (Denise Darcel), with whom Holley hopes to fraternize. Their comfort is brief. The next morning, led by Platoon Sgt. Kinnie (James Whitmore), they march to the outskirts of town and are ordered to dig in. As Layton is the odd man he is forced to dig his foxhole alone. Just as their positions are nearly prepared, they are moved abruptly to a new location and have to begin digging again.

Holley, Layton, and Kippton (Douglas Fowley) stand guard that night at a roadblock. A patrol of German soldiers, disguised as American G.I.s, infiltrates their position and later blows up a nearby bridge. In the morning, the squad awakes to find themselves in a heavy winter storm. Roderigues (Ricardo Montalbán), a latino from Los Angeles, is delighted by the novelty of snow, but his foxhole mate Pop Stazak (George Murphy), awaiting a "dependency discharge" that will send him to America, rolls over and goes back to sleep. Layton discovers that Hooper's company is nearby, so he goes over to see his friend, only to find that he had been killed hours before by a mortar shell.

Kinnie informs the squad about the infiltration and sends out a patrol — Holley, Roderigues, and Jarvess (John Hodiak)— to search the woods. Just before they start out, the platoon is shelled by German artillery, during which Bettis (Richard Jaeckel) panics and runs away. During the barrage, Layton informs his squad leader, Sgt. Wolowicz (Bruce Cowling), of his name and finds for the first time that he has been accepted as a part of the squad. Holley's patrol encounters the same group of infiltrators, and in a brief skirmish, Roderigues is wounded by machine-gun fire from an enemy tank. He is unable to walk, so Holley hastily conceals him under a disabled jeep half-buried in snow, promising to return for him. Unfortunately, Roderigues is left over night and is discovered the next day frozen to death.

Wolowicz, wounded by shellfire, and a sick Standiferd (Don Taylor) are sent back to a field hospital, further depleting the squad. Holley becomes the new squad leader, partnered with Layton, while Pop Stazak is paired with Hansan (Herbert Anderson). The squad, starved for news, finds out from a copy of the Stars and Stripes that they are making a "heroic stand" in Bastogne, from their medic that the field hospital has been captured by the Germans, and from Kippton that the 101st is surrounded.

Moved again and again, 3rd Platoon is attacked at dawn. Just when it appears the platoon will be overrun, Hansan is wounded, and Holley loses his nerve and starts to run away. Layton follows Holley and afraid of being a coward in front of the younger man, Holley regains his courage and leads a flanking counterattack that defeats the German attack. Jarvess's partner, Abner Spudler (Jerome Courtland), is killed while trying to put on his wet boots.

The squad runs into Bettis doing K.P. duty in the rear and gets a hot meal. In the brief respite, Holley shows his indifference to the plight of civilian victims of the war, angering Jarvess, who was a newspaper columnist before the war. Holley discovers that Layton is a quick learner, finding him being entertained by Denise. Later, while on guard duty, they encounter a party of Germans who have come under a flag of truce to offer Brig. Gen. McAuliffe terms for surrender; McAuliffe gives the puzzled Germans his famous answer, "Nuts!"

In the bitter and foggy weather, the squad is short of supplies – bad weather has grounded the transport planes which could have airlifted them in. Several men attend impromptu outdoor Christmas services held by a chaplain (Leon Ames).

That night, the German Luftwaffe bombs Bastogne. During the bombing, Denise's house is shown destroyed and she screams her death cry.

The next morning, the "walking wounded", including Hansan, are called back to duty for a last-ditch defense. Bettis, slowed down by his fear of going back into the front lines, is killed in the collapse of a house shaken by an explosion.

As the squad is down to its last few rounds of ammunition, the weather clears, allowing Allied fighters to attack the Germans and C-47 transports to drop supplies by parachute. With the support, the 101st successfully holds its ground. Afterward, the siege lifted, Kinnie leads the survivors of the platoon toward the rear for a well-earned rest.

Cast

• Van Johnson as Holley
• John Hodiak as Jarvess
• Ricardo Montalban as Roderigues
• George Murphy as "Pop" Stazak
• Marshall Thompson as Jim Layton
• Jerome Courtland as Abner Spudler
• Don Taylor as Standiferd
• Bruce Cowling as Wolowicz
• James Whitmore as Kinnie
• Douglas Fowley as "Kipp" Kippton
• Leon Ames as The Chaplain
• Herbert Anderson as Hansan
• Thomas E. Breen as Doc
• Denise Darcel as Denise
• Richard Jaeckel as Bettis
• James Arness as Garby
• Scotty Beckett as William J. Hooper
• Brett King as Lt. Teiss

Production

Battleground was originally an RKO property, which was called "Prelude to Love" to hide its subject matter, but was shelved when production head Dore Schary resigned, despite $100,000 having been put into the property to that point. When Schary went to MGM, he purchased the rights to the script from RKO, over the objections of Louis B. Mayer, who believed that the public was tired of war films. At MGM, Robert Taylor and Keenan Wynn were reported to be penciled in for the film, along with Van Johnson and John Hodiak, and the project was budgeted at $2 million.Wellman put the cast through some military training with Robert Taylor, a former Naval officer dropping out for not feeling the role was right for him. He was replaced by Van Johnson.

Robert Pirosh had based the script on his own experiences during the Battle of the Bulge, although he did not serve with the 101st Airborne. Many of the incidents in the film were based on actual events, including the rejection of a German demand for surrender on December 22, 1944, with the one word response "Nuts!" by Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe. Twenty veterans of the 101st were hired to train the actors and were used in the film as extras.

The film was in production from April 5 to June 3, 1949, with location shooting in northern California, Oregon and Washington state. Fort Lewis, Washington was used for the tank sequence showing the relief of the 101st Airborne by Patton's Third Army. Shooting took 20 days less than was scheduled, due in part to innovations instituted by Schary such as processing film as it was shot, and dubbing and cutting it so that scenes could be previewed within two days of being shot. The film came in almost $100,000 under budget.

Battleground received a number of premieres before its general release. A private showing for President Harry S. Truman was arranged even before the premiere in Washington D.C. on November 9, 1949, which was attended by McAuliffe, who commanded the 101st during the siege. Two days later, the film premiered in New York City, and then on December 1 in Los Angeles. The film's general American release was on January 20, 1950.

Response

Battleground was MGM's largest grossing film in five years, taking in a total of over $5 million in the U.S. market alone, and was rated by Photoplay as the best picture of the year. MGM released a similar film in 1951, Go For Broke, also starring Van Johnson and directed by Pirosh.

Awards and honors

Battleground won two Academy Awards: for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (Paul C. Vogel) and for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay (Robert Pirosh). It was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (William A. Wellman), Best Film Editing (John D. Dunning), and Best Actor in a Supporting Role (James Whitmore). James Whitmore won a 1950 Golden Globe Award as Best Supporting Actor, and Robert Pirosh's script won Best Screenplay. Pirosh was also nominated for a Writers Guild Award for Best Written American Drama.

Accuracy

Although the film is a fictionalized version of the siege of Bastogne, it is highly accurate with one major exception. There were no Germans disguised as Americans around Bastogne. Operation Greif, as it was known, only operated in front of the 6th SS Panzer Army, many miles to the north.

A minor inaccuracy is that, at the time of the Battle of Bastogne, the 327th Glider Infantry Regiment did not have an Item Company. When the airborne divisions were conceived early in World War II, the Army's senior commanders decided that the glider regiments would have only two battalions each. The first battalion would be made up of Able, Baker, Charlie, and Dog Companies, while the second would have Easy, Fox, George, and How Companies. When by 1944 it became evident that these two-battalion regiments were not suited to combat operations, certain glider regiments were broken up and their battalions attached to others. The 327th was assigned the First Battalion of the 401st Glider Infantry Regiment, getting "doubles" on Able, Baker, Charlie, and Dog Companies. Thus "the 2nd Squad, 3rd Platoon of Item Company, 327th Glider Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division," did not exist at the time of the Ardennes campaign. The producers did not want to have someone complain that he was in Item Company during the fighting around Bastogne, and that no such thing happened.^{[citation needed]}

External links

• Battleground at the Internet Movie Database
• Battleground at the TCM Movie Database
• Battleground at AllRovi
• 1949 review by Bosley Crowther in the New York Times