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Schism of God and country, making of the celestial warrior. He (Gary Cooper) is heard before he's seen, his drunken carousing disrupts a sermon more than a parishioner's squeaky shoes, his mother (Margaret Wycherly) notes the "mighty good shooting" that carves his initials on a tree à la Daniel Boone. A chalk line on the saloon floor gives the Tennessee-Kentucky border, his brother (Dickie Moore) fetches him with shotgun in hand but patiently waits for the end of a brawl set to "Oh, You Beautiful Doll" tinkling out of a mechanical piano. He takes a pail of water to the face before Ma extends the gift of salt at the breakfast table, so it goes throughout the film's first half, perfectly judged rustic Noh. "A piece of bottom land" is the dream, "that old-time religion" comes as a lightning bolt, "the ways of providence" are explained by the pastor (Walter Brennan). The Great War fills the second half, ace shooting skills make the conscientious objector a valuable asset in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. "That ain't no rookie—that's Buffalo Bill!" Hollywood's big interventionist pamphlet, engineered by Howard Hawks as thunderous recruitment folklore with a quiet bitter center. (He zeroes in on a handshake during a noisy congregation, and lets homecoming sentiments get drowned out by clamorous fanfare.) The Cumberland Mountains in a painted soundstage, plein-air filming for battlefield action, the turkey trick that comes in handy with Jerries in the trenches. "I reckon you just got to talk their language." The devout pacifist takes on "the whole sauerkraut army" by himself or so it feels, he returns to a blizzard of confetti and the inescapable irony of being rewarded for abandoning moral conviction. Notable analyses come from Eastwood (American Sniper) and Gibson (Hacksaw Ridge). Cinematography by Sol Polito. With Joan Leslie, George Tobias, Stanley Ridges, Ward Bond, Noah Beery Jr., June Lockhart, Clem Bevans, Howard da Silva, Charles Trowbridge, and Harvey Stephens. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |