The Glory Brigade

This is a pretty average small-scale war-movie, in which a platoon of American soldiers show themselves to be tougher, braver and cleverer than the Greek soldiers they have to join forces with. It's standard stuff all round, Victor Mature agonises, his colleagues wisecrack and the Greeks redeem themselves by the end.

I waited thirty years to see this film because Lee Marvin was given third billing. But all he does in the film is sit at a radio, wearing glasses, with the occasional bit of insubstantial dialogue. In fact he should have got tenth or eleventh billing, but one assumes that, following his success in "The Big Heat", the publicity boys decided to 'use' his name.

I felt cheated, which probably accounts for my not liking the film a bit more.

Victor Mature and Alexander Scourby star in The Glory Brigade, a story of the Korean War with an emphasis on the international makeup of the forces under the UN command against North Korea and later the Chinese. In this situation the American survivors of a patrol behind enemy lines are forced to cooperate both Greeks and Americans.

And here Victor Mature is a Greek-American and during the mission he who had bragged about the fighting ability of his native people gets a bad first impression. But they are forced to cooperate on the mission which is to find out if the North Koreans are planning a big offensive on the other side of a river which is now marking the battle lines of the two armies. Mature's patrol is wiped out save for himself, Lee Marvin, Roy Roberts, and Alvy Moore. Even though he's feeling embarrassed, Mature now has to rely on Scourby's men.

The Glory Brigade earned some glory for 20th Century Fox and the folks in front of and behind the camera. It's a nice no frills war film with the cast acquitting themselves well.

Aside from this being a war film about the Korean War (there are surprisingly few of these), there isn't a lot to distinguish this movie. It's basically a time-passer and not much more.

The story is about a cooperative effort between some American and Greek troops during the war. Yes, while the US was heavily involved, quite a few other nations sent troops to fight under the authority of the United Nations. At first, the American lieutenant (VIctor Mature) and his men have their doubts about the Greeks but (not surprisingly) by the end of the film they have developed a respect for their allies.

If all this sounds a bit familiar, of course it is. Quite a few other films have focused on American soldiers being forced to work with allied forces (such as in "The Devil's Brigade"). And, there really are few surprises or unusual twists to make this anything other than a time-passer.

This film is a decent war melodrama as well as a vehicle for star Victor Mature. It tells a somewhat engaging tale of an American platoon cooperating with a Greek platoon during the Korean war. The filmmakers use the distrust these platoons have for one another as a comment on racism and, ultimately, a slightly heavyhanded lesson on looking past differences to work together against a greater enemy. But the film has some rousing battle scenes, few and far between as they may be, and it's heart is certainly in the right place. The acting is mostly good, especially from the intensely watchable Lee Marvin, who is the primary reason I saw this film. He is my favorite actor and I jumped at the opportunity to see this little seen movie which is not available on home video at present time. He plays the demolitionist in Mature's platoon, just one of several random soldiers, really. Lee's role is small, but he does the most he can with the character and screen time he has. Fans will be interested to note that Marvin's character wears glasses, one of the few times he has ever been seen wearing them in films, or anywhere else for that matter. All in all "The Glory Brigade" isn't much better than fair, but Marvin and Mature fans may want to check it out.

Victor Mature plays Lt Sam Pryor an American officer of Greek descent who is given the task of leading a platoon of Greek soldiers during the Korean war

This had the potential to be a fairly good war film dealing with profound subjects like cowardice , ethnicity and identity . Unfortunately somewhere along the line something went wrong but I`m not entirely sure what . I guess all the ingrediants are there for a deeply scathing anti- war film but since THE GLORY BRIGADE has a fairly short running time it`s probably been produced by the studio as a B movie to be put on before the main feature which is a pity since it had a lot of potential , but I guess it deserves some credit for pointing out that the Americans didn`t fight the Korean war single handed