Fixed Bayonets! (1951)

Directed by Samuel Fuller; produced by Jules Buck

Left behind as a rear guard for its retreating division, an infantry platoon in the first winter of the Korean War must hold off a huge Chinese force at a critical pass. As casualties take their toll, command of the unit comes increasingly near Corporal Denno (Richard Basehart), an officer-candidate wash-out who didn’t have what it took to lead.

This was the second of Fuller’s Korean war movies, following The Steel Helmet. Though not short on action, it takes plenty of time to examine the psychology of men involved in war, especially the slow, grinding process of attrition. It has some excellent qualities but also a number of flaws.

The acting cannot be faulted. The cast is filled with competent players providing credible performances. Basehart has top-billing as a man who is given authority by default, and wants none of it. Given equal screen-time, however, is a Fuller ‘regular’, Gene Evans, as the tough Sergeant Rock (yes, that’s really the character’s name). Rock is a professional soldier, a veteran of World War Two (whose trail of battlegrounds appears to follow Fuller’s real-life war-record) but one who understands and sympathises with the men in his unit.

The minor characters are well-played by much less known actors (though James Dean, at the time unknown, is in an uncredited role). They are not quite stereotypes but are indefinitely drawn, typical of the era in their bravado and humour. Even so, the writing serves the movie well.

Yet the writing is also partly at fault for the movie’s failings. The screenplay is by the director, and seems to portray Denno’s reluctance to command as coupled with a similar reluctance actually to fight or to kill. The viewer isn’t sure if these are the same problem, related problems or simply the writer not being clear on what he wants to depict. An aversion to command is certainly not identical to an aversion to combat. Indeed, the story does a good job of making it clear that Denno is no coward. But exactly what else he is, is not entirely plain.

I found it strange that there are a number of anomalies related to military matters, as Fuller had himself fought in combat in Tunisia, Sicily and northwestern Europe. With no military experience myself, I could be wrong in my views, but one scene - tense enough cinematically - has a man walking across a minefield while his anxious comrades watch from what appears to be no more than twenty feet away. An anti-personnel mine surely had a killing radius of greater than that.

And again, while the platoon tries to fool the Chinese into thinking that they are facing at least a regiment, the Chinese are able to overlook the American positions. They must have been able to estimate more or less accurately the numbers opposing them. At one point, an officer instructs one of his men to ‘bury the mines’ deep; yet, not only would that help render them ineffective, but the soldier doesn’t follow orders and merely covers them with some snow.

I can’t help receiving from Fixed Bayonets! a feeling of immaturity on the part of Fuller the writer, as opposed to Fuller the film-maker. This may be presumptuous on my part; especially since the subject that seems a victim of amateurism is combat, something Fuller should have known well. The characters in the movie are much better drawn, more realistic, than the over-all depiction of tactics.

In any case, Fixed Bayonets! may be given only a lukewarm recommendation. A good film, it nonetheless is surpassed in quality by many others, not excepting Fuller’s own superb The Big Red One.