Pork Chop Hill

For the Korean War battles, see Battle of Pork Chop Hill.

Pork Chop Hill
Directed by	Lewis Milestone
Produced by	Sy Bartlett
Written by	S. L. A. Marshall
Starring	Gregory Peck Rip Torn George Peppard Woody Strode
Distributed by	United Artists MGM (DVD release)
Release date(s)	29 May 1959
Running time	94 min.
Language	English

Pork Chop Hill (1959), directed by Lewis Milestone, is a Korean War war film based upon the eponymous book by military historian S. L. A. Marshall, depicting the bitterly fierce first Battle of Pork Chop Hill between the U.S. Army's 7th Infantry Division, and Chinese and Korean Communist forces at the tail end of the Korean War, in April 1953. The film features Gregory Peck, Woody Strode, and actors who became movie stars in the 1960s and the 1970s, e.g. George Peppard, Harry Guardino, Rip Torn, Robert Blake, Norman Fell, Martin Landau, and Gavin MacLeod, with Harry Dean Stanton in an uncredited minor role. This film was Milestone's final war film, and it received good reviews. Peck, although not credited, directed a few segments, despite protests then by Milestone himself.

Plot

In April 1953, during the Korean War, a company of American infantry are to recapture Pork Chop Hill from a larger Communist Chinese army force; they recapture the hill, but are depleted. They prepare for a large-scale Chinese counter-attack which they know will overwhelm and kill them in vicious fire fights and hand-to-hand fighting while the Panmunjeom cease-fire negotiations continue.

Higher command is shown as being unwilling to either abandon or reinforce the hill. They will not reinforce the hill because the value of the hill is not worth further losses. They will not abandon the hill because it is a point of negotiation in the cease-fire talks.

The American negotiators come to the conclusion that the Chinese were pouring soldiers into a battle for a militarily insignificant hill to test the resolve of the Americans in the negotiations. The decision is then made at the last minute to reinforce the hill.

Cast

DVD Cover

• Gregory Peck – as Lieutenant Joe Clemons
• Harry Guardino – as Private Forstman
• Rip Torn – as Lieutenant Walter Russell
• George Peppard – as Corporal Chuck Fedderson
• James Edwards – as Corporal Jurgens
• Bob Steele – as Colonel Kern
• Woody Strode – as Private Franklen
• George Shibata – as Lieutenant Ohashi
• Norman Fell – as Sergeant Coleman
• Carl Benton Reid – as American Admiral
• Robert Blake – as Private Velie
• Biff Elliot – as Private Boven
• Viraj Amonsin – as Chinese broadcaster
• Charles Aidman – as Lieutenant Harold
• Barry Atwater – as Lieutenant Colonel Davis
• Martin Landau – as Lieutenant Marshall
• Ken Lynch – as Major General Trudeau
• Chuck Hayward – as Chalmers
• Paul Comi – as Sergeant Kreucheberg
• Abel Fernandez – as Kindley
• Kevin Hagen – as Corporal Kissell
• Gavin MacLeod – as Private Saxon
• Harry Dean Stanton – BAR man (uncredited)

External links

• Pork Chop Hill at the Internet Movie Database